Another point of view
by The known author
Summary: We have seen the past of djinn from magicians. What if we saw it from another point of view, a djinni view? Nero, an odd but powerful djinni, tells his story. As he goes past major events in history, he sees a new thing in his purpose in the world.
1. Prologue

**Another Point of View  
**

_**Disclaimer: I do not own the Bartimaeus Trilogy, but I do own Nero.**_

All right people the first thing I want to say is REVIEW. I'm not a person who's crazy for reviews but it pisses me off that I put this on and no one reads it. And for those who have seen this before, that's because I deleted that one and this is a revamped one. And now, here is a djinni's story.

**Chapter One**

**A forest somewhere near the Dunbar River, 445 A.D**

**Nero**

The four horses ran silently in the snow, leaving tracks fresh on the ground. On the horses were four Hunnish men, on a hunting trip. Two of the men were Bleda and Attila, stepbrothers, also co-kings of all the Hun tribes. They had bows, swords and other weapons all having some type of silver on it, mostly against the djinn. This annoyed me a lot as I was an insect hidden in my master's boot, Attila's boot where he had a dagger sheathed in.

I had been summoned to murder Bleda during this hunting trip. I was surprised that my master had me to do this and not some other more experienced spirit; I was only a few hundred years old and my first summons being with Caesar. After him, Attila was only my second master. Maybe he heard what I did for Caesar in Gaul; I masterminded the siege of Alesia. Now most spirit commanders are afrits; he had put a fourth level djinn to siege an important city and not some afrit. Now that's what I call trust. Not that he wasn't mean; I mean he was a dictator…

But enough of that, I'll tell you that later. Now the four horsemen came to a stop. The man called Bleda said, "This is the spot where the boar lives. Leave the horses here. Strike swift and with caution. We need to attack the Romans again and this is just for a feast, which we do not have time for,"

Attila was in the lead, with the two bodyguards behind him, and Bleda was in the rear. About ten minutes past when they saw the huge boar that had killed many strong and brave men (though not as brave as me). Attila pointed the two men to opposite sides. Then he murmured to me, "Get ready to act when we have killed the boar" I said nothing.

Bleda let off an arrow with a silver tip. It hit the boar right in the left eye. The beast stumbled a little and then turned to see its attacker. It charged at Bleda though he easily step sided it. One of the bodyguard let loose two arrows, both hitting the boar's backside. It let off a shriek and charged once again at Bleda. All four men released an arrow. One of the arrows hit the other eye and thus it went blind and went to tackle any one. It hit one of the bodyguards from behind. The man shouted a curse in Hunnish and ripped out his dagger though it knocked out from him as the boar hit him again. The beast knew that it had its prey.

Bleda had shot a few arrows into it but there really was nothing they could do. And when the boar was finished, it left a bloody mess. Suspicious, I peeked out and checked the seven planes. It was a boar on all planes. Well this was a tough boar. Then the boar collapsed from the pain and exhaustion.

The other two didn't make a move to get the boar.

"Why don't you get the boar?" My master asked.

Bleda laughed out loud. After a minute of mirth, he wiped a tear from his eye and said to Attila "My foolish brother, we didn't come here to get the boar we just wanted it to kill you. And now that it didn't we will! Men, attack!"

Out of the forest, four more men in leather came out armored and with long curved swords. Now the six traitors made their move to kill Attila. My master pulled out his sword and tried to make his own by slicing at them to keep them away. One of the men had enough of this advance and retreat. He let loose an arrow.

Before he shot that, I was still in Attila's boot thinking what to do, seeing I had some time. But now that the arrow came in, there was only one thing to do, protect Attila, for that was the secondary charge. I jumped out and turned into a similar Hun warrior and grabbed the arrow out of the air and threw it to the side, ignoring the cold feeling of the silver.

I tackled the nearest man to me taking him down. I threw him at the archer and they both impaled themselves in Attila's sword. Two down, four to go.

I let loose a Detonation at a bodyguard that had been there during the boar's attack. He disappeared in smoke leaving with an expression of surprise.

Everyone stopped and stood a little shocked. The ashes of the man blew into my face. Bleda caution asked, " You're a magician, brother?" He certainly looked shaken.

Attila smiled smugly. "You bet brother" Then he threw his sword at Bleda and it impaled his stomach coming out the other side. As blood flowed out and he was on his knees, Attila ran back to where the horses were. Seeing this, I left with him too. The two archers were furious at the murder of their leader and ran after us. After five minutes of solid running, we reached where the horses obediently waited. I rode a horse and Attila his. We took the other two horses since they were hard to come by. As we turned a corner, I saw the two men, still chasing us. I fired a Detonation and that last I saw of them, they were ashes.

We returned to the bivouac after twenty minutes of hard riding. The men and peasants were curious on where Bleda and the "other" bodyguard were (I took the form of the dead bodyguard killed by the boar). Like all magicians, Attila over exaggerated it purely from hunger for power. He retold how the boar killed the other man (apparently his "best" man), and how he took revenge by killing it with his bare hands, and then how Bleda ambushed him with my help (or in his story his dumb bodyguard) and then how he killed all of the rest of the turncoats with only a dagger (he didn't mention how I killed most even though he could have owned them all. Oh and he ditched his bow and arrows to make an effect on how he used all the arrows on the boar). After drinking wine and telling his "heroic" tale, the cavalry commander made a speech.

"You see, Bleda was hungry for power and to king us on his own. But if he were to succeed, we would have lost our legends on how we ravaged Constantinople and other great tales. So he was not fit to king. But Attila wants us to prosper and take over more land so we become just as powerful as the Romans. And what's better is that, he is the best swordsman here and that's what we also need. So I propose that Attila be our Supreme king, alone!" That raised cheers and within a few hours, he was given that title.

But right after the ceremony, a sheepherder came with a massive silver sword, the Sword of Mars!

"Dear Lord, I present you with the legendary sword I humbly found on my pasture as you have no sword and this fits you,"

Attila dismissed the sheepherder with disgust and tested the blade and sword. I flinched as he swung it near me, as bits of iron were molded in the blade and the handle had circles of silver. Then, King Arthur style, he pointed the sword high in the air and cheers sounded. It sounded like a medieval castle instead of a barbaric town.

Thus started the cruel reign of Attila the Hun and my long famous career.

So how do you like it? Bartimaeus by the way will appear occasionally and some of the summons of Nero with relate with Bartimaeus like in the Siege of Prague. REVIEW.


	2. A Rise in the Ranks

**Another Point of View**

**Disclaimer: Don't own please don't sue, thank you. **

**All right, this is a much longer chapter then the last one and I hope that you REVIEW and I don't care if it's a flame or not just REVIEW cause I'm not just making this while no one's reading it. And yes I know I said that I'm not crazy about reviews but now I am. But this is what you really want, the story.**

Chapter Two

**Somewhere near Chalons-en-Champagne in the Catalauian Fields, 451 C.E.**

I knew what it really meant to be in pain. It's kinda of obvious when I tell what situation I'm in. I don't know, you tell me, how would you fell if you had two oxen carts on top of you with some pure silver lined on the ground (don't ask me how it got there) and an iron arrow on my left leg crushed by a pile of heavily armored corpses. How the hell did I get there?

It was after Attila became the sole ruler of the Huns in 445. I was a bodyguard and nothing more plus I wasn't at the level where I would protected him even in a silver blacksmith (even though that is painful, you become more known thus you become summoned more, us spirits love boasting, and saying this as a title would really,**really** freak out many spirits), more like the type that watches over him as he sleeps. I mean come on! That's more like a foliot's job and I was much stronger then a foliot even though I wasn't that experienced (though a foliot with a hundred years under its belt can really kill me).

There were four high level afrits that would always be sentries for the entire camp, a job suitable for me; there were always attacks on the Huns, courtesy of the desperate Romans. And during the day when human warriors lined the walls in watch, the afrits would keep taunting me as I went for my patrol in the camp, which I completed during the day. I let them do that for about a few months since I knew never to get the wrong side of **any** afrit (During the Siege of Alesia, I decided to try and get in the action; I goaded a struggling first level afrit and was pretty much about to kill it until it finally snapped and went all mad, flying green sparks all over the place and nearly frying me, it weren't for a large piece of granite that fell from the wall).

But like that afrit I had enough of those stupid afrits (enough stupider then the Will-O'-The-Wisps).

So in the morning around nine when Attila would be just eating his breakfast, like a routine, they took their preferred forms (a large black raven tenth level afrit, a horse ninth level, a Greek god twelve level and a man in furs also twelve level) and followed me as I tried to concentrate on the job.

"What a weak djinn, going on his foolish patrol," the horse stated being stupid and forgetting that I was forced to do this. Now a stupid afrit is a rare one or else they wouldn't be feared so much. But if the afrit's potent then it mostly covers that flaw.

"I know, while we get the real job we get to relax in the day,"

The raven snickered and he too gave a punt. " What a stupid djinn,"

"A idiotic one"

"A thoughtless one,"

I decided to at least reply back if not show them a lesson not to mock Nero. "You do know those are basically the same words right?" I turned away from a couple of horseman and turned a corner to the main gate of the palisade wall where two bulky archers walked about the wall.

The Greek laughed heartily. "Did you hear that? He said that they were the same meaning! What an idiot,"

The man in leather gave me a cold grin when I turned to see there unintelligent faces. "You should be given the Shriveling Fire,"

"That's only if I disobey an order ass," The smug grin vanished faster then light (literally only my supreme eyes saw it disappear). The man kicked me hard in the forks of my legs hard. "You're disobeying an order right now so keep moving,"

That harsh kick changed everything. Sure our masters punished us, but never our fellow spirits unless we are charged to. And the way he kicked, it was as if **I** was his slave. Sure afrits are superior to djinn but no one has ever boasted so much that they hit another spirit on its own decision.

With that, I was extremely pissed off at those four, and you don't want to see an angry spirit of** any type. **I threw my silver spear, which I was supposed to carry around, at the man in pelts. It hit him right in the head and thus he died immediately.

"Well look's like he cracked. After him!" The Greek shouted.

All three fired some type of magic; the black raven dual Detonations, the God a Hydrogen Blast (a type of Detonation only it's dark blue and a really powerful one cast by me can nearly grievously wound an afrit) and the horse a Spasm. I used a Flux to carry the Hydrogen Blast away to the sky and dodged the Detonations but the Spasm hit me in the foot as a flipped above one of the Detonations. I lost my balance there for a second but then regained it. I replied with an Inferno at the God. It started to burn his toga but it would only delay him for a while. I sent a Convulsion at the horse however it simply counter-cursed it. The Greek threw himself into the snow as the Convulsion flew at the horse. The flames were quickly extinguished.

I saw that no magic could really kill them without me exhausting myself on one of them. So I decided to go physical with them.

I became a fly and I flew around the head of the horse. It tried eating me but the attempts to chomp on me was fruitless, as I was too fast for him. When I had about five minute of fun irritating the horse, I became one of the elephants I saw in Rome.

The huge mammal crushed the charger with its feet and tossed the raven into a hut with its trunk by grabbing the bird and throwing it. The Greek had enough brains to see that it needed to use the air as an advantage. The man sprouted wings and took off. The elephant became a roc and followed it. We were flying about in a "dogfight" swapping scratches and hits. I finished it when I fired a potent Hydrogen Blast. The Greek ducked but it curved from high to low like a knuckle ball and so it was hit in the head. It fell ten feet up and when it hit the ground, it left a mark on the ground, which you can still see today.

After about having ten minutes into the fight, several peasants, soldiers and other spirits gathered to watch a "lowly" fourth level djinn own four powerful afrits. Attila managed to get word of this and so with some of his magicians, he pushed and shoved his way through the crowd and what he saw astounded him. There was I, Nero with a foot heavy on top of the Greek God (in massive pain of course), and leaving a dead man, a very squished charger and a stunned raven behind.

After that event, there were some mixed complications in no time I was his personal bodyguard and a second commander of a company of mixed men and spirits. (There were about 160 men and about 50 spirits; five afrits, twenty foliots, ten djinn and fifteen imps with the main commander being a low level marid). But it really was after a battle on the River Vid in 457 that he trusted me. Though there were heavy losses (especially the death the marid) we won decisively and it mostly because of… you got it, me! And with that I was the main commander of the company and his favourite spirit.

For three years up to 450, the Romans had been paying Attila a tribute to keep peace; the Huns had been taking over a hundred cities and slaying any Roman, women, children, it was no difference. I hated when they looted all the homes and massacred everyone, but it was my charge. So Attila wanted gold and a bunch of land and when they settled down for the three years and my services weren't that needed so I got more rest.

But in 450, during the time when Attila decided to loot the kingdom of the Visigoths, in the spring, the emperor's sister, Honoria wanted to escape the arranged forced marriage to a senator and so sent a letter to Attila for help, but also with her engagement ring. Attila the fool, thought it was a marriage proposal.

We were walking along in the camp and I was following and guarding him like he charged and because he trusted me so much, he decided to talk to me about it.

"Nero, she has asked me to marry her, should I accept,"

I rolled my eyes. "For the last time, this isn't a proposal, it's a gift,"

"Yes, a gift that asks me to marry her,"

"It doesn't have to mean that,"

"If you keep saying that, then what does it mean?"

"It could be a bit of persuasion,"

"A bit of persuasion?"

"Yeah, you know, they think that you love such loot that that will be a benefactor to persuading you,"

My master snorted. " Emperors and they relatives do not do that. But you know what, I've made my decision,"

"Good for you,"

"And I'll ask for half of the Western Empire as a dowry,"

"Good… what!"

There were a few letters and troubles after Attila sent the letter, like Honoria saying that it was fake, then Attila saying it was real etc. And what made it even more troublesome was that the king of the Franks was dead and that there were two sons to become king. Attila supported the eldest son while the Romans supported the younger one. With these two events, he "harnessed" them as an excuse to invade the Western Roman Empire.

There was a mass gathering off all of Attila's allies and also a mass summoning. There were thousands of soldiers, men and djinn alike. There were mostly djinn that were used as canon folder and they were low levels like first levels or second. My company had been put in the main group and I had demi-afrits instead (they weren't too happy that a djinn lower then them had been placed in charge).

In 451 we marched in thousands to Gaul. We sack nearly all the cities in Gaul and when we sacked Metz, we only had about a hundred thousand composed of a small number of men and spirits alike compared to when we started. And Aetius, a Roman general that stayed with the Huns during his childhood, had gathered allies as well including the all-powerful Therodoric and was marching to meet Attila with an equally power force and even more spirits then the Huns.

After a long siege at Aurelianum (in which I nicely dealt with a group of mid level afrits with another demi-afrit named Lyra and that increased my title to Afrit Killer which I'll come on about some other time, I swear I will) word had reached of a massive army with tens of thousands of afrits and high djinn and a tremendous speed. By this time, Aurelianum was just under our control and Attila, out of pure pressure was pulling the army out the sacked city to find a spot to make a stand.

Attila had called his commanders, spirit and men similar to his personal hut. There I saw all the big commanders. There was a massive scarred man that was in charge of the foot warriors and had a special helmet that had two horns on the head, all the other attributes of a normal Hun head covering but there was a bright red hawk on the front gesturing that this was a man to fear. I heard tales of this man; he could kill djinni without the use or help of any silver or any other spirit. I could believe that the minute I saw him; during the meeting I tried staying away from him.

There was the archer commander, tenth level djinni that preferred the form archer wearing a uniform similar to the Romans. There was the horse commander, a thin, clean but flexible man who always had a few oats ready to feed any horse (he was sweeter then pie when it came to his horses but he was a mad man with a bad temper with the other warrior riders and rumor has it that he killed a man for forgetting to feed it for one meal). There were a bunch of other minor people until the last man came in; the supposed second in command came in. He was man with bulky muscles and a ghostly pale face and barley any scars. He had on ridiculous clothing; a woolen hat, furs that looked like he tore it right of the animal, he almost had no sign of armor unlike all the others. I would have jibbed him about his weird and strangely hilarious clothing if it weren't for a madrid that choose the form of a tall and fat man (I would have made fun of the madrid's potbelly and even though he can't kill me, that doesn't mean he can't make me suffer).

"I've called you all here to notify you…" I decided not to listen; I knew what the entire thing was about; the Romans were coming and we need to retreat and yada yada. This was basically a waste of time to come, but hey, I have to or it's the Shriveling Fire. Besides, I needed the rest from sacking this city.

Of course I had one ear faintly open for anything new and I found nothing. Good, now I can rest well. But just as I was reclining, I heard five words that didn't mean good.

"Tens of thousands of afrits…"

I immediately sat up as I was slumped in my wooden armless chair and listened intently.

"Ten of thousands of afrits was in the army was the rumor. Even Misue's" (the horse lover) "spies reported at least two thousand demi-afrits if not full afrits. We must move back to our homeland or be destroyed," The man with the different helmet sat back down.

Attila stood up slowly. He thought for a moment then began. " Dachen"(the guy with the weird helmet) " is correct. We must get out of here. But I also disagree with him. If we go back home, then they will track us anyway and will wipe out everyone if we were to go home. So, we must retreat to somewhere… advantageous. Tell everyone under your command to pack up now. You are all dismissed."

I went back to the camp with a scowl on my face. Attila wasn't doing this for the "safety" of his people; it was for honour!

I know a bit of that. Us spirits don't like getting insulted or feeling low but it's not like we'll secure it for our lives, that's what these warrior and leader magicians are like; it doesn't matter if they die, as long as they keep their well known title.

Aside from this, the huge thing about 2 thousand afrits annoyed me. Like I said before, any afrit is an afrit to avoid. They are tough cookies and trust me, when I say they are a tough cookie to kill, I **mean that they are a tough cookie to kill** (Like as in twenty direct strong djinn powered Detonations tough) including demi-afrits.

Speaking of demi-afrits, my small group of them was waiting for me.

I turned a left past some burning sausages and to our small area. There were five large tents for my group each able to have ten spirits in it. The demi-afrits were embarrassed that I was their leader but after they saw me at Metz, boy were they gloating (I easily killed a sixth level afrit single handedly with magic and was still able to eat five imps, take down two fifth level djinni and destroy three third level djinni). So when I got to the camp, I usually get a warm welcome, which I got when I came back from the gathering.

After settling them down, I told them to pack up.

"What, why? We just set up everything! Now we have to stow again!" complained a demi-afrit Jacksoness. He was known in the group for his powerful and crazy Detonations and Hydrogen Blasts. His preferred form was a yak with a monk like hair and standing on two legs.

"Because of Attila's stupid honor thing,"

"How do you know Nero?" asked a female one called Amandonia. Her preferred form was an anaconda.

" I don't know, you tell me, my master is Attila and has been for the last several years and don't you think I'd know?"

"Not really,"

I rolled my eyes and went to talk to my second in command and third in command. My second was a large eagle with literally golden feathers and his true form was a massive big blob of eyes and tubes. He could lift the world he wanted to and his Infernos blew up on contact leaving a large trail of fire which those that hadn't been killed by the explosion would be lying in. He was an afrit fourth level and was called Famosly and was about four and a half millenniums old.

My third, Alfonso, wasn't that strong and his preferred form is a lizard but a lizard with a large appetite. Even though he was only a seventh level djinni, he could swallow an afrit. Despite his small true form, his Hydrogen Blasts could rip the weakest afrit(which would still be strong enough to take down all the foliots in the Other Place which is still pretty hard to kill em' all).

"Get the camp packed up again and get everyone to the front of the entire army oh and Famosly, you're in command until I get back,"

"Where are you going?"

"Where I have to go back to; my master. I have to accompany him for the retreat,"

Attila decided to go to Orleans where he might stand a chance (don't ask me how, when I did, he was in a bad mood so he gave me the Stipples during the trip when he made the order and my tail of the leopard form I was in was on fire for the rest of the trip) but the supposed all powerful army of Aetius had beat us to the city.

From what I saw in the planes a few hundred metres away, it appeared that the Romans were a little rushed and disorganized but after over five hundred years of the power of the known world, they were known to pull off last minute wins or a win but with heavy losses even though a crumb of comfort was that the army was the same or less then ours.

Attila then gave the word to move** back **to the direction of the Danube River. But the Romans easily caught up to us and on June 20th on the Catalauian Fields were the stand between the invincible Attila and the great general Aetius.

As a Hunnish tradition before great battle, Attila had diviners examine the entrails of a sacrifice (which wasn't to beautiful to do on a bull). I really didn't want to see the diviners do their prediction with a bunch of organs but Attila **had **to charge me to watch the entire thing, to make sure no suspicious magic was performed.

Two women in silk and cotton shoes (that were soaked from the dew on the cold summer night) had picked and turned at the organs for what seemed to me hours and hours though it was only 20 minutes. I was toughing it out from seeing all those guts (hey I'm not one of those blood thirsty djinni and I was only at about a dozen battles; so when I see a guy get beheaded, I still finch) while Attila waited patiently.

Finally what seemed to be an eternity, the women looked up from the mess and started their prediction.

"This is a hard one to read but we have managed. This battle will have equal forgoes. Thou will have a disaster fallen upon ye, while the Romans will have a leader dead among they."

There was dead silence. After five minutes of irritating stillness (I'm one of those jumpy ones, I don't like the sound of silence, it means there's something a brewing), Attila politely (this rarely happens) asked, " Is that all?"

"Yes," the two old women replied in union.

"Then you are dismissed,"

When they left with their silk robes flying, Attila turned to me. "Get everyone ready and march them over to my personal tent in twenty minutes,"

I disappeared in a puff of smoke and went to the large mass of tents. As I went kicking and giving tents a small shock to wake them, among the noise I was a little concerned about the predictions. I really didn't believe those predictions (not that I wasn't superstitious) they were saying them in a freaky voice that could scare and bring down the house for an afrit and I had a bad feeling about this prophecy.

What was even freakier was that it was true.

_The first thing is review! Now in the next chapter, the battle will take place and will end Nero's connection with the Huns Oh and there won't always be battles since djinn aren't always used for that.  
_


	3. First Title and Bartimaeus

**Another Point of View**

**Disclaimer: Don't own trilogy, don't sue**

_**All right people, first thing I'd like to say is thank you for the thirty hits for my story but please REVIEW! Now this is now the long battle between the Huns and the Romans and Nero's in the fray of it all. But in this chapter **__**BARTIMAEUS will appear; **__**though not for a long time, his wise cracks will take up only about a page, but he's here people. And it might not be like the way Jonathan Stroud has made him but I'll try. Now time for the story to begin…**_

Chapter 3

**Somewhere near Chalons-en-Champagne in the Catalauian Fields, 451 C.E.**

**Nero**

At dawn, Attila gave his army a moral rising speech. I was in the left wing of the with my demi afrits. And like the others in my company, I wasn't listening (we djinni don't need speeches to raise our moral unlike the foliots and imps).

Finally the charge was on. The plan was that the Hun allies secure a camp on the right side of the ridge (the Catalauian Fields had risen up steeply on both wings, leaving a mini valley in the middle) while the Huns went to take the centre. The allies were able to take the right side without any resistance (no duh since there wasn't any Romans) while we had a little—no wait—a lot of trouble.

The Romans were already there when we charged barbarically (of course we did, the Huns **were** barbarians) though they weren't in proper formation so we still had a chance. Our forces smashed though the first line and then, the real fighting began.

There were personal fights, in the air and on the ground, all over the place though it was intense, really we didn't stand a chance.

My company was the one at the far left and was taking on a bunch of demi afrits, ghuls and mid level djinn. The ghuls were easily taken out with no one dying, as they just wanted to gulp you down but the demi afrits were a small problem.

Alfonso was the first to die. He was swallowing demi afrit after demi afrit with no sign of stopping. Because of him, we were the group that went the farthest for the first ten minutes. There were a lot of demi afrits for Alfonso to eat (like about fifty ghuls, two hundred demi afrits and thirty mid level djinn which are about levels four to seven, its kinda hard to tell the difference).

About when Alfonso had eaten around one hundred spirits, the Roman spirits (this section was all spirits) saw that everyone needed to focus on Alfonso. When we saw all the Romans turn their attention on him, we put numerous shields on him; mine was the first and strongest (I had taken out at this point about five ghuls, and two demi afrits. My second was at the back pushed aside by everyone, and my favourite demi afrit, Lyra had about seven ghuls, and one demi afrit).

But even with such magical shields they were easily taken out, mine destroyed by a bull who, this time in a boy guise, also killed Alfonso with the final Detonation).

My second in command, Famosly, was pretty pissed off at one, he was out of the action and two: that his friend, Alfonso was dead. So he shoved aside all the demi afrits in our company (in which another two were dead, one of them killed by the same boy with a strong binding Convulsion) including me in the middle of the company and was at the front of the line throwing his renowned Infernos all over the place, ripping up demi afrits but suddenly he was swallowed into nothing just as he was finishing off the last of the demi afrits and out came a high level afrit with a massive silver axe.

Everyone, belonging to Romans or Hunnish masters jumped out of the way and I was the only one, out in the open like a sitting duck. I saw I couldn't get without getting axed so I decided to throw a fancy Hydrogen but, it was easily reflected by the afrit's silver axe and it fell into the centre of the valley (where I realized that all the Huns were retreating and that soon my raggedy group of twenty-five out of the fifty would soon be surrounded).

I decided how I would end this duel between the afrit and me. Apparently, the afrit heard about my Tale of the Four Afrits (it was actually made into a song but now is lost) and wanted to see my power even though it was unfair that he had a silver item.

I quickly looked around and saw a silver long sword to even out he fight. I dived for it as the afrit swung his axe where my torso was. I fell upon the sword ignoring the cold essence of silver close by and brought the sword up to meet the axe once again swinging at my stomach.

We were sparring for a few minutes and the other spirits had come to watch. I had a plan to get my feet going and get the feeling of using a sword in my hands and then strike hard. I did that and the result: total victory.

I whacked and poke the sword time again and again and soon the afrit was too slow on one block and was incapacitated. Once that happened, the Romans roared in surprise and started to charge and released their magic at me.

I turned around and shouted at my group, " Fall back to camp! Fall back!" We turned into flying animals and raced off to the right ridge.

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Bartimaeus

Despite my greatness, usually in a war I don't really kill that many spirits, well at least not of significance but hey, that doesn't mean I'm not important.

Anyway, in this war, I'm on a roll! I've got a seventh level djinn, five demi afrits and a bunch of human warriors.

I got in this battle between the Huns and the Romans in a desperate situation. The Romans thought that they got the Huns under control when they gave them a lot of land and gold (all magicians love power and money plus land equals power and the more they had, the more power. Seems ridiculous to me since gold is only some thing shiny, rare, but just shiny nothing special and land, you got millions of acres and it's just a place to live on also nothing too special about it) and they did kept the Huns at limit, but only for three years. With the emperor's daughter causing some attention and the death of the Frank king, there would naturally be chaos and war especially with marauders and barbarians.

Attila was marching fast with a vast army and the Romans needed to make one fast. I was one of the rushed spirits summoned only with five hundred others. But it was time that the Romans didn't have so when they marched to their allies, they only had a thousand men and five hundred spirits recruited. So the "great" Romans went to their "pitiful" allies for help! And they got the forces needed and by the time Attila reached Aurelianum, his rivals had an equal amount of men.

Now here I was in the midst of a great battle. After the last of the demi afrits from the Huns had fallen back, I decided to travel the skies and observe how much we were winning.

Since we got to the crater first with large numbers, it was easy to repel the massive Hun numbers and when that happened, the Huns fell back and sent the others back to the camp. And when it was that easy, there was going to be some chasing and slaughtering.

I decided not to join in the killing and relax as much as I could before the Huns reacted and pushed back again even though the majority of the Huns were mortal men.

I glided above the battlefield watching organized Romans take out easily the savage muddled Huns and some fat afrits disemboweled several mid level djinni. But what really interested me was the fourth level 1 djinni hat held the line by blasted our high level djinn to the ground powerfully. This might be the djinn bodyguard of the leader, Attila and was rumored to take out afrits single-handed 2 and had fifty battle-hardened spirits under his command and was invincible 3. Right now he just finished off a low level djinn and was about release a Spasm at a horla slashing at a tall lightly armored human Hun warrior brandishing a massive axe.

I dropped down as a huge eagle and just as the fourth level djinn was swallowing a Roman archer; I grabbed him by my talons and rushed up. The djinni was smart and changed into an elephant but I was Bartimaeus of Uruk and I had fought a thousand battles and won them all! A two-ton elephant wasn't going to stop me from dropping the guy two feet up, which I did.

He only dropped about half a metre when he changed into a demon crow and let loose a minor Inferno. I dodged it.

"You seem to be a spirit of great power," I said sarcastically about the pitiful Inferno as we circled each other.

He was a young one and did not understand sarcasm so he replied, "Of course I am! This is only my second master and they call me Afrit Killer,"

"I'm so surrrrrree that they call you that; why don't you prove it?" I wanted to get this annoying bug off my back 4. I pointed at a fourth level afrit, tearing up the tired line ofunnish men and djinn. "Try taking out that guy without any silver weapon and if you get luck killing it, you have to try it again. But wait! Not only do you prove your title but you do me a favor too 5,"

Head strong, he flew down to face the afrit and prove to me his unlikely title. Yes, this was going to be fun.

I was quite surprised at what he did to crush the afrit, which he did literately. Mr. Show Off flew down and then changed into the elephant again and smashed the afrit under a large foot. And just to be sure, he twisted his foot left and right. The Hun crowd cheered and the Romans looked grim. The djinni knew I was looking so just to show me off even more, he decided to kill another afrit. He swung the tusks at a third level afrit. It dodged the tusks easily, which is what the djinn wanted him to do. He let loose duel Detonations and to my shock, it blew the afrit right into dust. The battlefield was silent, save for the other wings of battle. I decided to take the chance and slip away from death; I knew that the djinni would come to gloat and eventually kill me.

1- I was astonished that it was still alive throughout all the battle; until my appearance, I was at the back shoved aside by every human and imp.

2- I highly doubted that when I first heard it that would later change

3- Well, not anymore. They were more like hardened by the large amounts of human blood spilled since there were only about a dozen left.

4- During this banter, he had been throwing Convulsions and Detonations left and right which was quite annoying since I just wanted to talk

5- The afrit kept bugging and bugging on how he was an afrit and I wasn't for the whole seven-day journey here; just because I said my title.

---

**Nero**

After my meeting with the mysterious djinn who killed my second, the remaining dozen demi afrits (those who were left that I knew well were my favourite Lyra, Jacksoness who scored several kills and Amandonia) we came back to camp to defend for the Romans hadn't arrived there yet.

As we kept holding and retreating, I wondered about the djinni. Who was he and what was the weird voice he was using (silly me, I hadn't heard of sarcasm until the next master). He appeared to be a strong one with a long career; he had killed a high level djinn, a bunch of demi afrits and about a dozen human soldiers with silver items and was still ready for more. What was even more suspicious was that he had left and was nowhere to be found.

I was knocked out of my thoughts when an imp rapped on my helmet and started its report. There were only a hundred men here and about two dozen spirits, with only two afrits, seven djinn not including me and the rest imps or foliots. We were a few feet from the camp where loud noises came of panic as it prepared for the minor siege from the Romans and allies.

"Sir, the Ostrogoths have returned with two hundred men and fifty spirits where twenty five spirits and half of the men returned to camp, the rest staying here," it paused. "Now can I go back to camp?" (I worked the imp to his exhaustion just so he could return to camp). I was thinking of putting him up to more when I saw the faint figures of the horlas stumping their way up the hill. I waved the imp away and got ready for the large charge.

The beasts easily broke the weak wall of stoutly piled bricks. They had spears, iron spears. We all slowing backed up until be realized how many horlas there were, about a thousand. Some of the ones who were cowardly or this was their first major battle ran off and quite surprising, about forty-five point eight-six percent of the defense (that's quick math for you) were gone. Others lost morals and ran also back to the camp. The rest of us, men and spirits (mostly spirits) knew that this was suicide to hold. So we followed the cowards, leaving the piercing cries of laughter behind us.

---

Bartimaeus

The men were laughing their heads off 1 and djinni, afrits, alike; us spirits were scratching our heads wondering how stupid the Huns could get.

We created an Illusion! And the defendants 2 didn't even know! It was one of the easiest spells that magicians can whip up with barley any exhaustion, and yet, we fooled everyone!

After the men finished their gay joy 3 their focused and started toward the fortified camp, that is if you can call it that.

There were carts and wagons sealed up by Binds and about ten dozen of imps lined the "wall" watching for us. They easily saw the men, squealed and ran off to sound the alarm and it was huge. A Discharge 4 flew into the air, exploding when it was about a metre high making a strident sound, like a thousand bulls screaming at one time 5.

We ran up throwing spells at the cart making no effort, until a low level marid came out of nowhere and chucked duet Discharges at a rotting carriage and it made a huge explosion making a crater in the ground.

Now Attila is really going to get it.

1 Some imps were literally doing that and we had to clean up that up. What a waste of time

2 The Huns were originally the attackers; now it changed so quickly.

3 Back then, it meant happy, not the other meaning

4 It's a type of spell that only marids can conjure. It is a whitish colour can take out six mid level shielded djinni at the same time I had a master who tried to make a spell to protect himself from his enemies only to have him killed from exhaustion.

5 Trust me, it's loud.

---

Nero

I was just resting up when the head marid that belongs to Attila's second in command sounded the alarm. I wearily got up and gathered my raggedy tired group of demi afrits. We went to the front "gate" (There was no gate; Attila had no plans to push forward with only twenty-five thousand troops left versus a lot more Roman infantry. But was really harsh was that all our cavalry was dead.)

Men were pouring in and they started to slowing push us back, but not without heavy casualties. Our line of men with silver spears held them steadily.

My team went into the fray with caution. Fortunately none of the Roman spirits had come so we just gobbled up the humans, recharging our energy like the other twenty djinni and five afrits at the gate. Abruptly, a low level, massive marid smashed through our binds and released a Discharge that atomized two, high level djinni and a low level afrit.

Jacksoness went all crazy at that sight and put all his energy into his wild Detonations as they flew blasting into every Roman spirit and man, mortally wounding or cremating them. He paused for a second and then sent about ten Hydrogen Blasts (must of taken a lot out of him) at the marid. It didn't have a shield erected so when it took nine Blasts, it was demolished (the tenth flew into a second level djinni and wounded her badly). All the Romans lost moral and backed up a little. Jacksoness, tired and hunched, turned to me with huge smile.

Out of the clouds, came the same djinni I met earlier with the voice, in roc form. I saw him aiming for Jacksoness and Jacksoness didn't see him. I shouted to him, but he was to full of pride and of content to hear me. I was too far away to get to him in time and I couldn't hit the roc since it went so fast. Besides, if Jacksoness even noticed in time, he would be too tired to fight back or get away. So I watched in horror, as the roc grabbed him by the armpits and threw him into the air. Then, his mouth opened one metre wide and he swallowed Jacksoness. The roc turned into a tiger.

By this point only Lyra and Amandonia of my group had survived. Lyra was being careful; she was taking cover by a wagon, the handle on one end on fire. She popped up when it was clear throwing a heavy item or a spell, every now and then she got a kill. Amandonia was a king cobra sinking her poisonous teeth into anything near her (including our own men) and the djinni noticed her threat. This time I attempted to warn her, but she was too engrossed to hear me; besides the djinni was going really fast that there was a sound following him. Amandonia managed to see the djinn but it was too late; she was already in his mouth.

Hastily, a dozen mid level afrits burned their way to where Lyra and I were and in half a minute, the only ones remaining were a few freaked out men with their wooden shields and silver tipped spears, Lyra and I in the burnt gate. The two of us slowly made our gradual, quiet retreat.

The same djinni followed me silently. I got separated from Lyra and was lost among the burnt tents, bodies and wood. I saw lots of activity half a kilometre away (Attila's camp was huge since it had to house tens of thousands, though I'm guessing there's only about ten thousand spirits and humans altogether) but between me was a scorched wasteland.

I was half way past the badlands when the djinni landed in front of me as a massive bat. I sighed. "You again,"

"Yeah me again," the djinn landed and was an Egyptian boy.

"Can you not leave me alone?"  
"Apparently not,"

"Well then at least tell me your name so I know who I kill,"

"Bartima—wait a minute! Who said you have the ability kill me? I am Bartimaeus of Uruk! I am Sakhr al-Jinni, N'gorso the Mighty! I have won a thousand battles and won them all! So what makes you think you can kill someone that's been in a thousand battles?"

I ignored his titles (though it literally shook me a little and the Huns might hear the loud voice he used) and replied; "I've noticed you're only a fourth level, same as me so we're even. BUT, I have the ability to kill any afrit as you saw…"

"So what if you can kill any afrit, I have been at the Battle of Al-Arish where half a million utukku faced my small Egyptian army where I survived it and killed over a thousand of em' which I bet you can't,"

"Yeah well…"

Apparently, he thought the conversation was over and tossed me into a weak wooden tower. I looked up. I creaked a little, sounding like it would hold, but then the whole thing fell and I was buried painfully under it (there was some silver amulets in the tower). I tried digging myself out but then Bartimaeus threw a sturdy mobile on top of me. My essence broke through the remains of the tower and crushed the silver amulets. I yelped in terrible pain as Bartimaeus walked over to me.

"Well, well looks like the Afrit Killer has just been beaten by an 'only fourth level djinn'," I tried pushing the wagon up but the silver sapped my energy. I stopped.

"And look, here comes some iron arrows," He turned into an armadillo and took cover from a barrage of hundreds of iron arrows. One went straight through my left leg. I screamed in pain.

At the wrong timing, Lyra came after the arrows stopped and Bartimaeus turned back into the boy. She shouted to me a few metres away. "Nero!" It caught Bartimaeus' attention and he sent a Detonation at her. It caught her off guard and threw her quite a while away (like to where the remaining Huns were).

"Nero eh? Looks like Caesar named you after royalty… oh that's a good one…"

I watched in horror as he picked up several bodies with silver armor and he grabbed the copses by the legs and put them armor on left leg. He clapped his hands to clean them and he walked away.

So here I was, painfully with iron and silver with my form slowing changing into liquid. I had managed to slip out of the cart a little, now only my legs were stuck. But I didn't make any more progress then that.

Several hours later in dawn, Attila sent out imps to find any survivors and there was only one imp in each area. It was my unlucky day that the same imp I had worked to exhaustion had found me.

He came when the sun was at about seven o'clock searching obediently. I called him over hoping like all the other imps he forgot about the works I did to him. No such luck with me.

"Well looks like the great Nero, Afrit Killer is stuck under a woolden cartdm," said the imp with mock in high toddlerish voice.

"Just shut up and let me out of here,"

"No way, after what you did to me," (the imp was one of those spirits who enjoyed their service, even though I liked mine in Rome, not anymore).

"See you Nero,"

"IMP! LET ME OUT OF HERE," I said it loud enough to bust any human's eardrums. The imp just hummed and left searching for others.

"When I get out of here, you'll be in my stomach in a second!"

Which would be soon; Attila summoned me and I left in a blur of colours with a sigh of relief nearly, **nearly** forgetting about the imp.

When I came to, Attila was pacing his pentacle impatiently. When he saw me, his faced turned furiously and I braced myself,"

But he was calm, which I never expected (after this, I was careful even with imps). "I will dismiss you forever for you're failure."

I turned furious and cut him off. "FAILURE?! FAILURE! WHAT FAILURE. WHO WAS THE MASTERMIND FOR ALL YOU'RE "GREAT BATTLES" AND WHO WAS IT THAT SAVED YOU FIVE TIMES DURING THE BATTLES IN GAUL?" (I'll tell about this later, I'm on a roll) "ME! SO I DON'T KNOW WHAT DAMN FAILURE I DID IT'S PROBABLY YOU MESSING UP MY PLANS!"

He raised his voice. "Failure to win the most important battle in my life!"

"WHAT! First of all **you **created this dumb plan, not I and secondly, what's the failure? Sure you lost all your damn horses but we killed a lot of Romans! So…"

He rudely interrupted me and dismissed me for good.

I thought he was one of the worst masters ever. Though despite that, if it weren't for him, I would have never been known; he secretly made a book and said in it that I was the best there was and because of that, I got a lot of titles (but was always exhausted) and was feared because I had new titles : "Afrit Killer", "The Scourge of the Romans" (even though they brought me into the world) and "The Mind and Arm of Attila's Huns".

_**All right people, that's all please, review; would it torture you to say several words nonetheless good words or bad?**_


	4. Fall of Rome Part 1

**Another Point of View**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bartimaeus trilogy, don't sue.**

Chapter 4

Nero

After Attila, I had a few summoning, practically with the Romans since they had noticed me during my servitude with the Huns. During the twenty-five years from the Battle of Chalons to my scenario now, I had about thirty masters, of both Barbarians and Romans. And my scenario? I was being held up literately by a fifth level marid by the collar pushed against a iron wall with two afrits, levels six and ten with silver short swords behind him (the afrit) and with peasants, Romans senators and some wounded Roman Optios and Milites running away with houses and buildings on fire. They were chased by one side of Italian barbarians who were easily storming Rome with angry resilience commoners coming on the other side.

This was the Fall Of Rome. I was in the middle of it all.

It started when my last Roman master had summoned me in 475 after a successful campaign led by me, a year before Rome was plundered. After summoning me again from the Other Place (I had been in my master's service for that year) and ignoring my words to tempt him to get out of his circle, he quickly picked up a sleeve of his toga about to slip out of the pentacle and summoned the damn djinni. Like me, he was a puff of smoke and was taunting the Roman but he silenced him.

At first I didn't realize who he was but then, I checked the planes and, it was the same djinn at the Battle of Chalons who left me under a bunch of carts.

I just stared at him and when the Roman silenced him, he saw me and his face was a little surprised.

"Well, looks like you managed to get from under. How did you do it? I didn't think you would survive the battle nevertheless the weight I put on you,"

I stayed silent.

"Cat got you're tongue?" Bartimaeus turned into a black cat and pawed his own tongue.

" You're the one who did that?"

Both of us turned to our master and saw that he was the one who spoke. His voice was a soft yet stern one that chilled fire. He had a tanned skin and had a couple of molar teeth missing. He was like a mini Caesar (he was about twenty years old). From what I learned during my servitude with him, he was a rising star in the Roman military and had killed an afrit by pure skill (and I'm guessing pure luck), until an arrow stuck in a bone in his leg forced him to resign from the military; he couldn't run the hard terrain that the Roman army had to cross. But even though it was the end of his career, he had enough money to live properly. Besides, during his military vocation, a magician there had taught him the basics like how to protect oneself during a summoning and something like that. The highest he had summoned was a major foliot. But after the arrow incident, he secretly taught himself how to summon a spirit of an afrit. And when the emperor heard of this achievement, he automatically put him as a senator, for one: fear of downfall and two: a powerful ally. He would have made a perfect general; he knew every tactic during that time, he knew secretes for new recruits to know so that they would survive and many other strategies. For example, if he were asked which to choose, an afrit or five djinn, he would have picked the djinn. And as for the reason, he would have said. "Well the afrit and five djinn can kill the same amount of men, but the afrit can only do one thing at a time where's djinn can do five other things. Besides, the five djinni are more efficient," and that is a true general's answer. On my personal note, he was a good master; he only did the Stripples when it was truly needed (lots of masters punish us for no reason) and he knew limits to our abilities and was a little more trustworthy then most.

So there he was, asking us a question like we were normal people (where we are very superior… maybe that's why magicians always summon us, because they know we are better) and asking Bartimaeus a question probably only djinni would find out about.

Bartimaeus just nodded (probably from the shock of a human asking a djinni a question).

"Well, looks like I choose another satisfying djinn. Anyway, both of your charges are to simply guard me; all the other magicians are dealing with the barbarians and there are more people our to get me… met me outside my house,"

We disappeared without a word.

**Bartimaeus**

This master was quite odd; he asked us a question out of the blue and acted like we were normal. Hadn't seen that since Ptolemy… I still haven't gotten over him. What do you expect, it wasn't even a thousand years since he died.

It wasn't the master that was on my mind but the same Nero. He had managed to get from under those wagons, the silver armor, silver sparkles and an iron arrowhead and still survive without a bruise on his essence. Mmmm… he might be stronger then it seems he is. And now I'm a part of his team. This was going to be interesting

It was a late summer day and the skies were total blue. We were in Rome and apparently my master's house was by the sea and the port was extremely busy. Legions boarded triremes headed for Northern Italy with some cavalry following them. I took this in for a moment, and then turned to the black dog beside me also examining the beautiful view. The dog said while admiring the sight "Why do you always take the boy's form?"

"Why can't I?"

"I never said you couldn't; I'm not you're master,"

"Though you wish you were, right?"

"I never said that… that's besides the point. Why do you and who is he?"

I shifted uneasily on the stone sidewalk. I never told anyone, especially a djinni why. Maybe I could stall by telling who he was until the master came.

"He was…someone I knew,"

Nero rolled his eyes. "That's news,"

"Fine…you really want to know? You do? Well brace yourself. He was one of my masters."

He wasn't ready for that at all. His eyes bulged and in all, his black dogface was entirely traumatized. His form shifted from a dog to a crow as a result from my answer 1.

"Do you just love black animals?"

"A master!? You've got to be kidding me. You mean one of those people who lock up in a damn pentacle and make us do impossible things. Are you…"

"Just to let you know, he did none of those."

That stopped him good. He began to think hard. I hoped the master came out that door soon cause it was really hard and embarrassing to talk about Ptolemy. But there was no such luck.

"Are you saying you could have eaten him?"

I hesitated before replying. "Yes. And before you say anymore, this is like an honor for him,"

"Why are you honoring him for? Purposely giving you a chance to eat him? What's the point anyway if you didn't eat him? Beside I bet you ate lots of magicians and I don't see you in their form,"

I was angry on how he talked with him. Then I reminded myself that he didn't know anything about Ptolemy. I breathed in deeply but quietly.

"He gave me three gifts which no other magician would ever do, an exception and…"

Fortunately the master came out and gestured us to follow him. I eagerly followed him leaving Nero behind. He caught up and tried to start it up again but the Roman silenced him. I grinned silently and inwardly.

We walked among the crowd. Traders were bargaining and trying to out shout one another. Some traders attempted to sell my master something but he waved it away. Spices and dancing girls were on show and platforms as well with tame bears. Nero for some reason was a little frightened by the noise and though he tried to keep his calm while watching over our master though the throng, every now and then, when an Asian or Middle Eastern man or women jumped out at him with a good, he would flinch; so much for being an Afrit Killer.

"Hey, hey, calm down, they're just human,"

He looked at me blankly. He eyed a low level djinn passing through us before replying. "I know. It's…something I've experienced before that makes me afraid of traders in crowded markets."

"Mind telling me what it is before that gives you this fright?"

"Not unless you tell me why you always take that boy's form,"

I realized that I was still in Ptolemy form and I changed to a slave from the Nile. I ask you, doesn't he sound like a magician when he suggested that trade! Sounded perhaps even worse! And he made a fuss over when I said that Ptolemy was one of my numerous masters when he made it like he wanted to be like one! Sure we all hate being summoned but we spirits definitely never in their life will want to be a magician 2.

For no reason, I wanted to push him into a crowd; I did so. He tripped into a crowd of nobles and caused a huge commotion. Aristocrats tripped over their togas and market stalls fell. Dancing girls lost their beat and fell to the ground. Music from musicians squeaked unpleasantly and even some tame animals had broken free. And among the chaos I whistled innocently and hurried to my master.

When I looked back after a few minutes I saw that some djinn and foliots fixed up everything and the scene was back to normal. Nero came over to our master still focused on the road ahead and gave me a suspicious look but then surveyed the area.

After ten silent minutes of walking, the crowd thinned and soon there were only a few people of all social classes were walking down the stone walkway. We came to a bar where suddenly, two soldiers in armor with short swords at their side brought out four regular commoners, each guard holding two men 3 by the gruff of the neck.

"Here sir, are boys that have been found to be against the government; we caught them just in time 4 about to murder several members of the Republic with knives,"

"Put them in the public cells, I'll talk to them later after the meeting with the Emperor."

They moved on and we got closer to the Roman Forums.

The senate was formed at a table in a massive building in a crowded area where most of the government was centered. Usually, several things would have been discussed, and in the time of Pax Romana, it was mostly cheerful things. But now, the empire was falling just like every other ones. Resilience was growing among the commoners year after year, barbarians were always on their front step (in the end, luck was always in their favor), and the djinn and their army had almost no power to stop it. That sent the government into panic.

"We must stop the Italian Barbarians; they are advancing the farthest of all the tribes and have already gathered all their allies and are led by the traitor Odoacer to here. We must get all of our armies and counterattack when we can," an elderly man finished, dressed in the same white togas as the others around the table. A young black haired man shouted out an agreement and slammed his fist on the table in anger.

"What are we doing? We should be getting active and be planning to destroy the detested barbarians. We are talking nonsense at these meetings; it makes them become rubbish."

Arguments sounded all over the place, each one trying to out shout the other. Nero had never experienced this loudness so he lightly winced and covered his ear. I smirked and looked on with amusement.

Suddenly, my master slapped his scarred hand hard on the marble table and bellowed out a shushing sound. The room almost immediately calmed down. Even the talkative youth stopped like the others.

"We do not need to do this nonsense squabbling. We need to decide on something fast; like Barrrius 5 said, every second counts. I suggest we do a spirit gathering and send the vast group to battle, mostly against the Italian advance force. Consuls, continue."

My master sat down and an elderly man with an olive leaf crown on his head slowly rose up as his delicate body was frail and looked as if he would fall. He slowing spoke, his Adam's apple wobbling fast as if he had trouble speaking.

"The emperor _de facto _6 is worried about the threatening Italians that have already rushed past Milan easily. And the collapsing army also makes him more stressed, so I believe that if the emperor were here, he would approve of the demon gathering, but unfortunately he isn't so I will send a message giving permission to sign a contract that allows …"

Suddenly, the fourteenth level djinni that had been guarding him had picked up the consul in his arms and moments later, a Detonation exploded where the consul was standing saying his short but powerful speech. A few of the nearby sitting men were flipped over but relatively unhurt, despite the spell being thrown by a fifth level afrit.

The afrit was a Frankish one 7 and was in a corner perched on a master pole holding the building up. When it was found, he jumped to a whitewashed granite column. Some of the old members of senators were shocked for a moment, and then sent their foliots in. Nero and I were already in the air, I an owl, Nero an Osprey. I was ahead of Nero, who didn't have enough experience to react faster then me. I released a Blast 8 and I realized my mistake of doing that; it could take down the whole building 9. Luckily, it hit the afrit, but her shield engrossed most of the blow. But she lost her balance; she stumbled back a little, and then fell cart wheeling unconsciously a few times midair. Then she hit the ground hard. It didn't affect her the most, but the limestone floor took a huge hitting. It cracked a little in all directions like a spider web.

A few djinn from the other senators surrounded the afrit. They were about to take him and disable him, when suddenly, a bright flash occurred and the result, was that all five of the djinn had flown in all directions and the glass in the entire building broke. A few minutes later, the gray afrit emerged from the smoke unharmed.

Most of the senators ran off already and the building was evacuated. Only my master, a few other magicians and the war minister were still here. The number of spirits here were: five regular foliots, two third level djinn, the fourteenth djinni from before, finally, Nero and I. The other five djinn were instantly killed. Despite this large number for djinn, it was still not enough to face the afrit.

The she-afrit easily took out the foliots with two minor Infernos. Then she jumped into the air, up two feet and crushed a third level into pie. Then she put him in her mouth and swallowed.

My master sent a plasm 10 at the afrit. She nimbly dodged it, only to get hit with a strong Detonation sent by Nero. Now the affect of the Detonations wasn't what I expected; I thought maybe it would throw off her balance, and if it was strong enough, shatter her impenetrable shield. Instead, not only did the Detonation break her shield, but also, it sent her flying across the room and hitting a wall. There was smoke rising from her, and even though she wasn't dead, I was stupefied that she would be knocked out.

The fourteenth level djinni in a bodybuilder form picked up the sleeping afrit. Three demi-afrits and a dozen Roman uniformed soldiers came into the battleground. There was glass everywhere. Cracks were engraved on the walls and floors alike. The dead spirit bodies were lying all over the place and there was a funny smell of smoke in the air, though there was none on all seven planes. That stench was in the room even when it was repaired, all the way to when barbarians pillaged it.

1 Yup he was that shocked. I'm not surprised that he was astonished

2 I personally love to be in charge, but not like that commanding

3 They were more like teenagers. The next generation always had the resilience

4 They're just doing this to so that they can rise in the ranks or simply to just suck up. Humans always do this unlike us spirits.

5 The angry youth

6 The new emperor was very young, so there was another politician, quite reliable; to be temporary emperor until the real one was old enough. Don't ask how a babe became an emperor.

7 I could tell from the form he was in. Well not the form, but the clothing. In the Franks, spirits wore a brown fox fur around them to show that they were Frankish djinn.

8 Short form for Hydrogen Blast

9 I don't care if the building fell on top off me, I could get out. But my charge stopped that and even if I did that, my master was a military man and could probably get his way from underneath and wouldn't die. I would probably get the Shriveling Fire for disobeying him and also if he's stuck under there, my ticket out of Earth.

10 He did this with the help of a third level djinni. Magicians cannot create magic or shield for it's us, the djinni and afrits and who make that happen. The only magical thing they can do is summon us and punish us. So if you see a magician say something under his breath, and a shield appears, he or she is probably telling a djinni to shield him by transferring the power to him

---

The signing of the contract was even more abrupt after the afrit attack on the consul. After summoning thirty djinn and ten afrits (including me and Nero), with five other magicians we set out north to face the oncoming Italian force.

We rode on horses and had to go slow, since the magicians couldn't go as fast as us, despite them being in the army before. It took us a week because of the mages to catch the Italians. During that time, Nero kept trying to pry out secrets about Ptolemy. I had no idea why he was so interested; Faquarl said he was a runt when I told him about it and Jabor wasn't the talkative type. So why was he so interested?

The night before we battled the Italians I learned **his** secret. He would talk only in the evening about Ptolemy. He was later then usual and was fiddling with a strap on the saddle. At first, I thought he finally might not ask tonight. But there was no such thing with Nero.

_1…2…3!_

"What was special about—,"

"Now before you ask boy," I snapped cutting him off. "How about, you tell me how you got these extraordinary powers." Nero was about to protest. " Don't lie. I'm a fourth level myself and I can't knock out a shielded afrit any day with any spell any day no matter how hard I try. So don't waste your breath."

He was a little surprised to hear my response like that. The other days was a simple yes, or no, give or take a few extra words. So he was silent for a few moments. He fumbled with the straps of the saddles. He was in the form of a twenty-year-old shaven man in standard Roman uniform. He pushed the bronze helmet up straight, and then slowly replied.

"Well… it's a long story so get comfortable,"

Despite being an expert with horses, I'm never comfortable on horses, no matter what I do; putting soft pelts under me, having a custom made saddle it is no use. I did some feeble changes, like shifting my weight or cross-legging my legs. In the end I was sorer then I started out with.

"It started when I was first summoned. My first job was to catch rouge spirits. One cold fall night, there was a loco afrit on the loose and was destroying buildings in Milan. Usually, afrits were sent after afrits, djinni after djinni etc. But this time, most spirits were busy and I was the highest level there was; all the afrits were chasing after a marid. So I was sent out.

" I followed the afrit into a forest quite a while away. The problem was that I had no silver weapons and I had no idea where he was going. And as a bonus," Nero said sarcastically. He continued. " He was a high level one; about eleven or ten. So it was midnight and he was making a huge trail in his wake. After an hour of solid running, I cornered him in a part of the forest where there was a cliff. He couldn't transform into a bird before I would smote him. So he decided to fight back since he thought I was easy to take on. I was quite a challenge for him and amazingly, I almost killed him. As a last resort, he decided to use, Solomon's fifth spell 1. Because of the long fight, doing it might have killed him, but he had a chance. So he did it. But something went wrong, and he was killed as it backfired. As for me, I was knocked out and there was a huge tingling feeling throughout me like. When I woke up the next morning, my master, Caesar, summoned me. Satisfied that I killed the afrit 2, he sent me on another chase, where there, I amazed myself by killed two djinn just with one Detonation. And it was from that misused spell, my powers have increased; aside from the altered powers, I was more energetic, more alert then ever, and I could stay on Earth longer then most still being active. And…that's how."

I believed him; there was an afrit where Solomon tested the fifth spell on, it was the second test and this time it malfunctioned and the results; the afrit seemed to be like a marid. From that, Solomon didn't say that result for fear of someone overthrowing him and also for fear and a rising of demons; yep, he was a little paranoid. Besides, after that occasion, Solomon was exhausted till the end of his days.

Well a deal was a deal, and Nero would keep bugging me until I went mad. So, I told him everything. Everything about Ptolemy, from the scar on his chin he got when I was away in battle, to his favourite sandals. Then, I retold the events with him, starting from where he first summoned me, all the way to his third and last gift to me whilst he died. Nero listened quite intently, and I hadn't known a fellow spirit like that for a long time 3.

At the end, he was staring at the stars above thinking hard. The sky night was indeed, beautiful. I could see Sirius, Canopus, Arcturus and Alpha Centauria; the four brightest stars in the night sky and the brightest in this order. I knew this since I was with some of the masters who discovered them.

"Now I see, why who take his form. Indeed, what a different human,"

"Oh yeah, definitely. But let me tell you this," I spoke in a deeper more serious voice, making him pay more attention to me and leaning in more, almost falling off my horse.

"Let me tell you that Ptolemy, will be the only, the exception, human to do such deeds to us. You are one of those djinni who at first hope for a master, who will treat you like an equal. Don't give me that face. I know because all spirits your age give or take a few years lower or more, all your age do that. But aside from Ptolemy, there will be no other one like him . Sure, there will be a few who try to get your trust, but never give it; they will always have their own plans. We mustn't fall into that trap. That's who some of us get killed. And they call us demons! They are the ones that bind us in a pentacle like a prison; they are the ones that punish us painfully for no reason. They use us like a body shield. You have to learn that somehow, some time, one way or another."

Nero was a little surprised at that answer and I'm not surprised. Hearing such a large and great speech in the middle of a summer night riding on brown horses.

We rode in silence, listening to the other djinn conversations. One pair was talking about the glinting standing out stars that night. Five were communicating about the recent attacks on the Western Empire. The others were in a competition to see who had the best form. The afrits agreed to judge. Despite some interesting forms, I could have swept them all off with many different animals that would have stupefied even one of the afrit who was so stubborn that he would shake his head every single time.

And that was all that happened that night.

1 This is a potent spell that can kill half of a legion though the caster has a high chance of getting killed, which did happen to the afrit.

2 He sort of killed the afrit. If you ask me, the afrit was either one stupid one or one desperate one. Maybe suicidal…

3 Okay fine, a few centuries; Affa and all the other spirits Ptolemy summoned, I got along pretty well with.

**Nero**

I still didn't understand what Bartimaeus said the other night. I understood the reason why he was so fond of Ptolemy, but the master lecture. I don't believe him, I don't believe that Ptolemy was and will be the only one to ever truly treat. I think that the master we have is the next one. He knows our needs and our abilities and that he won't abuse it. But oh, would I find out later the truth…

It was late dawn when an imp came back screaming it's head off. We tried calming it down, but it was no use; it was going deaf with all the yelling. All of us, the djinn and magicians (the afrits stood guard at the edge of a slope. Our camp was by a cliff) tried then to pry the information from the imp while it was screaming.

"Was it the Italians?"

The imp shook it's head vigorously still screaming without taking a breath so far (it was going to choke soon).

"Are they in big numbers?"

"Oh, you don't**say,"**

"How am I supposed to know that?"

"Well isn't kind of obvious? Or else why would this rat be yelling?"

Bartimaeus bonked both third level heads together. "Stick to the main thing,"

They looked humbly at him for a few minutes then continued their painful interrogation. But it was about to end soon.

"How far away are they?"

That was answered quickly. Suddenly, over the western horizon, Thousands of horlas marched in rows with silver spears and iron nets or other miscellaneous items designed to hurt out essence badly. Following the horlas were djinn with Italian uniforms on and they looked pretty pissed off (a few of us did a air raid run a several days before we saw this and there weren't too many spirits when we harassed the army. The five djinn and I threw everything from trees to rocks; I even saw a fifth level send an oiled haystack down. At the last minute when all the djinn below laughed at him for throwing "harmless grass" he set the hay on fire with an Inferno. I'm pretty sure you know what the result would have been. It's too gruesome for me to tell you what happened). And as I probably said, no one what's to see **any** grumpy spirit. What was worse was that the column was moving faster then any would expect.

"Well, that's far," Bartimaeus, said with fake cheer.

That's when we all ran off to the nearest outpost.

We had been running for three days straight, lagging only for the magicians even though they had barley rested. But now we were finally at the closest outpost outside of the Empire with our inferior temporary masters being treated. But now, enter the barbarians.

The outpost was like a mini village. There were a few crops growing, a couple of wells strategically spread out and several peasant families were living in sturdy houses. But really, it was mainly for military use; there were barracks surrounding the peasant's living area, every few hundred metres on the tall palisade wall, there was a tall tower, able to hold two or three men. The outpost was so important (don't ask why, usually we djinn don't go into politics) that it was guarded day and night and even had a few siege engines. But the most different of this was that this post had a stone tower with many archers lined up from the top level. It seemed to be unconquerable; it faced dozens of sieges and it's the only one in the post that has never had to be rebuilt.

We group of spirits barley had enough rest before a harsh horn rang out. Villagers ran into the tower in freight and men ran out of their billets well equipped for battle. Archers stood to attention at stand on the walls their fingers twitching with anticipation. The five magicians that came with us stumbled out of their beds with their personal djinni with them. We forty spirits were the only demons there.

Us spirits we divide into three groups. One was with the main defense on the ground and had three afrits and fifteen djinn. Bartimaeus, an afrit, five other djinn and I were on the wall. The rest were in ambush tactics ready if the Italians broke in.

Just as an imp messenger (okay fine there were other spirits, but only imps) flew off to the nearest army camp, the leaders of the defense (us) including the mages rode to meet the leaders of the attackers. I just lay down on the wall foot space and stared at the cloudy sky. It was a cold day with the winds blowing quite strongly. The wooden wall shook slightly. Two djinn put Binds, Nexus and Hexes all over the wall. The afrit on the wall helped them. Neither Bartimaeus nor I made a move to help them.

The ranks below shuffled from one: the cold and two: nervousness of the massive oncoming battle; most of the humans were barley older then twenty. It was unusually cold for late August weather. That usually means bad, which it of course with me, always happens.

The mages on our side said something wrong in the mini meeting, and the leader screamed a war cry in anger. The mages and Roman leaders clumsily ran back to the front lines. Archers on the wall and ground released arrows that flew fast but straight. Many hit armor and shields, but lines were felled. The barbarian army marched forward slowly, hindered by the arrows flying at them. Out of their ranks, djinn and afrits flew ahead hastily in an unorganized order. The bronze arrows did not harm them.

One of the afrits released a massive Detonation. Another high-level afrit followed it with an Inferno. Both hit the wall squarely in a huge explosive. The Binds broke like threads snipped by scissors, and Nexuses fell like leaves. Splinters of wood broke off and flew in all directions. As for those men who looked up to see the explosion, they got a nice surprise in the eye. Cries rang out from the result of the falling wood, both big and small ones, it didn't matter. Because of the many falling lumber, half of the small defense gathered at the base of the wall were crushed, not even yet charged the invaders. Despite good discipline in the Roman army, the fear was too high and now days, everything Roman seemed to fall apart (one of the wagons the mages traveled in broke up for no particular reason) so the young men ran off for cover in the post. The middle wall tumbled right over, so that those in the back running into the post were also crushed. Bartimaeus and I were on the right wall so we were safe from the danger. But who said we avoid the chaos altogether?

Both of us managed to balance on the shaking wall, though the djinni that constructed the Binds fell off and was on the ground. The afrit on the left side was hanging onto the foot walk of the wall. The other four djinn were in the mess of the middle wall.

The invading spirits flew hovered over us, about to finish us off. Some though, went to run down the fleeing defenders (there were only two afrits and a dozen djinn left. One of the magicians was dead). Four spirits soared over us three djinn. Two were high level afrits, one a very high level djinni and the fourth… a marid?

Oh god.

The wall shook again from the trembling of the horlas pushing it. This section was about to fall. The djinni that made the wall defense had just perished in a plume of flames and his ashes were in the breeze now. Below us, men fled in any direction, though most knew they had to get to the tower.

Bartimaeus jumped onto a tower built into the wall and tore the roof off. He threw it at the high level djinni (who side stepped it) then sprouted wings and flew to the other side of the wall where the afrit was struggling there leaving me there with all four spirits. It was like leaving me on a cliff in the face of death; I had no idea why he did that. Until I saw that engineers were digging the wall out of the way and that Bartimaeus was taking care of them (even though I had no idea why they would be digging out the wall since there was already a huge gap in what remained of the palisade).

One of the afrits slammed the roof right back at me and I was only slightly winded. The afrit cocked its head in confusion (he apparently threw the lumber with all his strength) but the other three sent down Spasms down at me. I flipped over them and became an imp (despite it's humbleness, an imp form does has it's advantages like, avoiding spells even though true imps are easy targets) and flew into the air. The imp did some gymnastics moves to avoid the spells and soon became bored (plus I saw there was some urgency below) the imp became the Devil (not that I met him fortunately. So I took what stories said he was; a head in his butt, horns all over the place, ugly skin, I have to admit, something like us spirits) and all the tentacles and tails lashed out. All but the marid lost their balance and freefell all the way down. The marid flipped in the air to avoid the dozen of tails lashing out and sent me bawling in pain with a Detonation (it was so powerful that when I crashed into one of the remaining barracks, there were still green sparks flying for a few minutes around me).

As I got up, this time in a falcon form, I saw that the Italian barbarians were attempting to break down the huge gate to the tower where the remaining Romans and ten spirits (both afrits were dead and two djinni were dismissed automatically after another magician was killed from a random flying piece of debris). The barbarians were not failing at doing it either; soon, it would fall.

The marid was still in the phantom form that he started out in the beginning of the scrap and so had scared a few of his own warriors by gliding through the air making his screeching and whining noise (it even made me jump a little). Now he was circling the tower, tempted to blow it away with a Detonation. I saw, that he was going to, sooner of later. Now really I wouldn't have cared if the building had it's roof blown away, but naturally, the charges got in the way.

So I simply tackled the marid from behind. He didn't even notice me; he was too busy harassing a djinni that came out from the tower. The Italian marid flew to the wall (I was quite surprised how off guard the marid was) and crashed into the wall, face first. When he rose fairly slowly from his slump, the spirit seemed pretty surprised (I would be too if a foliot tackled me and sent me flying for a hundred metres, not that I'm a foliot, but to the marid in power, comparable).

He saw me flying to him, so he picked up a splintering pole and threw it at me. Particles of chips flew in all trends as it smote me straight in the chest. When I recovered from the feeble blow, I saw that it was just a distraction; the marid was on the roof of the last mini watchtower on the failing palisade. His feet claws dug in and an Inferno was lit in preparedness for me. I jumped on his shoulders in a goblin body. He staggered to the side and we fell off the roof. He managed to get one hand on the handle of the lookout tower and pull himself into the cramped space. My crude, crocked goblin clamped onto his shoulder. The marid gritted his teeth and threw me to the floor. The wall tittered even more at the blow. I flipped backward as he launched himself to where I was a moment ago. When he saw that I was above him, he wrapped his arms around my legs and attempted to pull me down.

We grappled for a minute, locked in a football tackle position. Then I kneed him in the nuts (if he had any, then that's where I kneed him. Yeah, yeah, I know, do male djinn have any? Of course they do, though I've known some that have none), he flew up into the air, and then I five-stared him in the back, and he flew, once again, face first into the floor. The watch shook dangerously. But I was laughing my head off (if you had been there, I would have been hilarious and even though djinni don't laugh often, there are some moments, and I am young so that should account for something) but trust me, you don't want to hear a goblin laughing (it's like a choked cackle with teeth banging and grinding together like nails on chalkboard all put together) and that's what finally woke up painful here.

While I was still vulnerable (laughing that is) for five minutes, he slowly got up, and then he jumped me in front.

I was a little caught off guard there, but then I pushed my legs into the air, thus throwing the marid off the watch tower and flying twenty metres below.

I shivered in the strong autumn like wind, and then sprouted wings and flew off to help those stuck in the tower.

**Bartimaeus**

A week later, Nero and I were back in Rome and back in our duties. The reinforcements had just arrived when the enemies broke down the gate to our tower though the leaders were never found like Odoacer, the de facto emperor was most pleased and of course my master gets all the credit and we "demons" are just ignored most rudely. Well, that old routine is back in swing now and right now, Nero is reinforcing the outer wall of Rome while I'm in the men's washroom with my master.

Right, in the toilet place you say? Communicating while sitting on the toilet was a common thing to do with high-class men. With me, is an imp that keeps wrinkling his nose in accordion to the loud sound of passing gas and splashes. It was suppose to be listening to surveillance imps spying on an important meeting place for barbarian leaders, but it was most likely concentrating on blocking out the bad scent.

But yet, I had no idea why **I **was here. I mean it's not like an afrit is going to barge in and upset the vital senators right here on the toilet. But for now, I'm going to have to improvise.

"We need to—ug—train more troops to spread more order across what Empire we have left. We –oh—must also summon more demons to deal with those that can't be brought to justice,"

A conversation that dealt with the decline of the Empire continued as like with disgusting sounds of stress that will show that he is trying to shit 1. And because of that, if the imp had eaten anything lately 2, he would have thrown up. But now, the only thing I could do was to try and block out the smell and do my charge all at once.

But after a few minutes of minor conversations, it began to be interesting.

One of the smelly ministers pulled from the bag beside him 3 and took out a large prism object wrapped in a hide and was quite the opposite of the lavish things they usually had.

When the minister unwrapped the thing that was engulfed in the fur, there was a black smoke in it; I noticed there was a strong aura around it. That meant that it was quite potent.

"I, gentlemen, have found a new type of higher spirit! Yes you heard well (Romous get your imps to seal the room's sounds more strongly) and this is no minor discovery either; it could save the Roman Empire from destruction!"

This had surprised me since pretty much all the spirits that could be discovered were already found in the time of Ur and a millennium later. Most of the magicians now and most likely later are too lazy to find more spirits; they use the same ones over and over again.

"Gentlemen, this spirit is like Nouda and will solve all of our problems. He doesn't listen to anyone but the person who says a specific sentence. And because of that, that is one: why he can switch masters without being dismissed and also why I asked you all to bring a djinni or an afrit; to protect this glass prism if anyone or thing were to steal it."

I just realized now, that there were other spirits in the room, also gagging over the smell. There were two afrits, five djinn and I. That's eight spirits, each accounting for their master.

The magicians started to get excited and began to talk loudly and frequently. And in consequence to that, they didn't hear the low rumbling going on quietly outside. None of the spirits heard it either; they too were very animated about the new spirit. Normally I would have dismissed the sound with a lousy excuse; I wanted my master to be killed so I could go "home". But my gut told me that **I **too could die. So first, I tried to tell the spirits but only one djinni listened and he just shrugged and went back to talking to his afrit friend here.

I kept listening to the rumbling for several minutes. It seemed like a minute problem but then I heard an explosion outside. None of the spirits seemed to notice.

The imp tapped me on the shoulder. "Sir, the imps outside of this room have not contacted me for five minutes," The imps sealing this room had to speck with this major imp every five minutes. It was either that the imps were distracted with something, forget to report or that they were dead. Frankly, I think it was the latter option 4.

Then there was a huge explosion that everyone could hear in here. All the men and spirits stopped talking alike. They were petrified to hear such a loud explosion. The imp beside me gulped.

Then the room wall where the door was flew toward us. The two afrits blocked it and it fell to the floor. Two bluish-gray Spasms flew to us. Two minor djinn hit the wall leaving dents. It was so powerful that both of them were immediately knocked out.

Infernos flew all over the room, bouncing off the walls, hitting djinn though unfortunately my master and his collogues only got a few scratches. In the end of the scrap 5, there was just me and the afrits left.

One of the afrits peered curiously into the darkness forward. He motioned the other she-afrit and I over. Our masters just sat there uselessly.

We walked about the hallway looking for the rouge spirit. There were security djinn lying all over the place with smoke coming out. I found the remains of the imps by the door.

"Where could that monster be?"

"Maybe back with his master,"

"Now why would he do that?"

"Perhaps it was just to annoy the senate,"

"Okay, but…"

While this conversation was going on, I was deducting things. First off, there was only one spirit that assaulted this community building (lots of other men naked were dead in other rooms and it seemed that the building was evacuated) or else our masters and we would already be dead. But it was a high entry since it can kill a bunch of djinn and a lot of magicians in such a short time. And it appears its master wants the newly discovered spirit. But how can that magician know; only the top people know about it. Unless there's a mole…

There screams to where the toilets are. We rush back to find the cube missing and two of the politicians were dead.

1. Yes, excuse me for my language.

2. Very unlikely

3. We all got a view of something very disturbing

4. These imps were very different from most idiot ones; they were actually trustworthy

5. It was a very biased one; only the marid dealt the spells


	5. Note

Author's note

For those of you that read my story, I will have to postpone my new chapter for a while longer. I have some issues to deal with and I will not update until early September.

The known author

P.S- has anyone seen my fiction press story?


	6. Fall of Rome Part 2

Another Point of View

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Bartimaeus Trilogy but I do own Nero but please do not sue.**

Chapter 5

**Nero**

The walls of Rome were one of the most essential items that the Romans needed at the time. There were many raging barbarian tribes, waiting to pounce on any helpless travelers. They, lately the past century, had gathered to make one big empire, and had started to conquer Roman cities, until Rome and a few other minor and major cities were left, clinging on to a hopeful future.

And because these walls were so imperative, new structures were being built every year, and old ones repaired. So I was there, lifting tons of stone and enforcing each one painfully, day and night. So when a portion of the wall I just rebuilt blows to pieces, I'm telling you, somebody gets pisses real bad, **somebody.** I leap to the edge of the destruction and looked down.

The walls were about four and a half meters tall so I could see a lot of details, especially since I'm a djinni. There, were four official demi afrits chasing what appeared to be, a marid in a fat cat disguise. It had scotch marks about his back and was limping slightly. In one paw, steadily balanced, was a black box that had around it a suspiciously large aura. The cat blasted another segment of the wall and pounced into a hut that was sited near the wall. It then leaped out of the hut without the cube. The cat disappeared into a tree.

Despite my work destroyed in a blink of an eye, I was entertained by this and would have continued to gawk at this chase if one of the demi afrits didn't shout out to me.

"Hey, you! Quit staring and start helping us catch this thrower!"

I jumped down in a flash and in a cat demon form I bounded into the tree, only to find it empty, save for a few birds. One of the demi afrit in an overly large toad form (it was a metre high and probably would have weighed about a hundred pounds) pointed to a large deciduous tree and gestured the other demi afrits to come. One was in a floating fire demon form; another in a crane form and a boxer dog was the last to come. I arrived without permission.

We surrounded the tree in a cautious way with our fingers lit in preparation for the inevitable battle; we demons never give up until told to since we're told to never give. The leaves rustled a little from the unnatural cold wind. The toad (who seemed to be the leader of this pack) hopped a bit further then the others. It croaked out "Come out, we have you surrounded!"

"Right, um Todd I don't think it'll come out,"

"Silence Crot!"

"Well 'Crot'" (that was the crane's name) " has a point; it is a marid after all and…"

"You too stranger, silence— what! a marid!"

An Inferno burst out of the tree, burning a few leaves on its way and smote the toad directly in his face, just as it croaked in fear and surprise. The corpse tilted to the left, leaving a black hollow face. Several more flames came out as the other three official spirits dived to the side in revelation. I just quietly hid by the trunk of the tree without being perceived by anyone.

By now, Infernos and Detonations were flying all over the place and hitting random objects like bushes and trees, debris from the broken wall and especially a crane and a dog. Only the fire demon demi afrit and I were well hidden. The last remaining demi afrit couldn't return fire without ending up like his companions. Both of us would have waited out the attack until the marid finished, but he just seemed to keep going.

Twenty minutes of flames lighting everything had pass, with no help from the city on the way and the marid flying spells everywhere. Maybe help would have come if only some visitors didn't come uninvited.

Three figures flew above my head just visible through the clouds. The marid stopped for quite a while. Seeing this, the demi afrit returned fire making him visible to the three figures. They plummeted headfirst directly for the fire demon. As he threw Detonations at the tree, he didn't see or hear the three spirits dive toward him. And so, he got killed obviously.

They hit him hard and fast so fortunately for him, it was quick and painless, which unfortunately meant I was alone now. The marid and the three figures came together to examine the remains of the demi afrits. After a while in which I hid behind the trunk of the smoldered tree, they started to talk.

"That was quite a bit of practice for me, especially with the last one…" stated the marid.

"Yeah, for **you, **you had a bit of practice,"

"Besides, without us, you would have been blown or burned up by that fire demon,"

"Well I'm an marid and he's a demi afrit so unless he had some silver or iron stashed away somewhere here, I highly doubt that he could kill me,"

"Never mind; do you have the box our master told us, or at least you, to get?"

"Of course, it's at the hut nearby. Don, go get it quickly before some djinn or djinni come out of that city to finally see the commotion."

"Yes, I thought the Romans would respond I little faster to such big smoke right outside their city; and they're missing spirits too,"

I was very suspicious now; their voices (well at least the marid's) seemed a bit familiar. From a quick peek, it seemed that the other three contained of a high level djinni and two afrits. Who ever could be able to control all four of these were very potent. Or maybe these were spirits that enjoy their summons so it's much easier for the master. That's also a strange thing. And that black cube, it had a huge aura and it seemed more important then it probably being a box of sweetmeats; four demi afrits don't go chasing after a box of missing sweetmeats unless the army really needs to recruit troops.

By now, the djinni came back with the cube. It seemed to be an observable one because…

"Hey um, wasn't there another one?"

"What?"

"Another spirit was here, wasn't there?"

They began to look on the planes and flail their heads in search of me. One of the afrits turned to a bird and flew into the air. As I dived into a bush, I realized who they were; they were the spirits at the outpost! Yes, the marid's fighting style was similar and so was his voice!

I was considering this, when suddenly, a huge hand grabbed onto to me and pulled me out of the bush and there I was, with the djinni as a moody duck holding me by the gruff of the neck. I smiled.

I distracted the djinni. "Nice day eh?" (It was actually a very cloudy day with high winds that shrank the day temperature to about ten degrees C. Not a lot for an August day).

"Huh, yeah" said the djinni quietly. He continued on.

"What are you doing here?"

"Going for a nice stroll?" I said this uncertainly and uncomfortably.

"Right, you know we can see you on all seven planes djinni and that we know that animals don't talk,"

"So why are you talking?"

"Okay, stop with the chit-chat Don," the marid interrupted our mini conversation. He had the black box under his left arm now. The other two afrits were watching the city for any activity threatening them. The clouds now had covered the sun and everything was gray with occasional sunlight peeping out.

The cube box had some swirls going all around with weird sounds and images coming out of it occasionally like absurd black, dead white arms, flying faces, randomly appeared at one of the faces of the cube. A low howling and whipping winds as well sounded; or maybe the latter is just the real wind slamming leaves against my back. This month, lots of bizarre weather has come like some snow flakes falling, two week long rain afterwards (in where I had to stand in it waiting five days straight for the Ostrogoths to come and attack a few common small villages) and at the beginning of the month, a huge forty degree C (or about 100 degrees F) came sweeping in and wreaking some crops in the countryside. A gypsy predicted some force would come and put an end to the world or that an event would flounce in and shock thousands or even millions of people (shock as in like put to death).

"Okay then, what do you want from me,"

"Information. We know you have vital information,"

"What do you mean? Since after all, my master is a harmless military captain…"

The marid slammed me against a huge oak tree. It wobbled slightly, creaking a little.

"Listen to me on this. I am a marid. You are a djinni,"

"Yes, that is quite obvious…"

A hard slap to the face came my way.

"Don't talk funny…"

"You don't want me to? Oh, I thought you were a funny one. Okay, I'll talk physician. Pi equals to 3.14 and…"

Another good beating to the face.

"I said, don't mess with me,"

"Oh. Ah, well you could have said that earlier…"

The marid's hands lit up with flames. He put them close to my face. I could feel the cold heat (our magic sometimes do weird things).

"I'm pretty sure you don't like to feel this smote right in your face. Make it look…funny."

My eyes crossed to keep the flames in view.

"Really? Well, how come it seems that you are leaking essence from behind?"

He turned around to look at his backside. He loosened his grip on me. I slipped away, snatched the cube from him, and disappeared.

Bartimaeus

"Where's that bleeder?" screamed the marid. The djinni by his side flashed through the planes, but failed to notice the bug on his shoulder.

"There!" He saw Nero fly off to the walls of Rome, well away from clear view.

"Damn! We got to get that cube back, or else the master's going to put the Essence Rack on us! The best way in is to the human barracks on the west wall. Let's go!"

They turned back into their bird forms and flew to the west.

I had been tracking them from where these foreign spirits had killed the four djinn. Back in the washrooms, it was a huge mess. Djinn and Roman guards had rumbled everywhere, in baths, hallways, change rooms you get the point. After a quick cleanup, I was sent to follow the delinquent and come back with satisfying answers. And so, here I was, on the back of a smelly crow.

Knowing this wouldn't get me anywhere, I decided to make a risky move. I slowly crawled to the top of the crow's head, down the forehead and on the nose. The djinni had crossed his eyes to look at me. I waved four ladybug arms, and poked his eye rather painfully.

Crying in pain, the crow lost attitude and fell into a canopy of trees.

The others hadn't noticed their companion's absence, so I took his form and kept in line behind the other three.

The dived to the west barracks near the wall and flew straight through the smoke hole at the roof. While they had their fun with the humans, I waited on the roof and spied for Nero. I knew he wouldn't waste his time here; nope, he would go straight to the master. I would take time to do so too.

The other three walked out the door as Roman soldiers. One of the afrits motioned me over.

As I landed and transformed to a hoplite, they armed themselves with silver tipped spears and silver laced short swords. I sighed as them handed me a spear; it seemed that the only important thing was war.

"Don, watch our backs, we're going to go into the house of the imposter's master's house."

"Imposter's master's house?" This sounded awkward.

"What ever just do it,"

I was about to give a retort back, but I restrained myself. I could blow my cover if I wasn't careful. But right now it didn't matter; I could hit one of them with a Detonation, say it was an accident, and they would believe me. Quite low security measures.

After reaching my master's abode, the other three whispered together for some plot, while leaving me behind, facing all the strange stares. I pitied the djinni I threw into the woods; not from the fact that I chucked him into a bunch of painful branches 1, but from the treatment he received from his fellows. I'm not too surprised actually; most afrits and especially marids are like that.

As I walked past them, they stared at me. I looked behind me through the corner of my eye. They seemed suspicious…oh damn. They might have checked the planes…

Either they didn't search thoroughly, or the flash in their eyes was not them filing through the planes, but the sun, because they just continued walking with their eyes on me. I didn't want to break my pattern. It seemed that they were already quite suspicious. Quite a change from a few minutes ago when they treated me just like the garbage that's thrown out on the street, to a spy of high power. Well, really I am.

I decided to walk into a detour through a crowded street, knowing that the afrits and marid were concentrating on me too much to realize where I was leading them. I passed under an archway into a more eloquent setting. The expensive villas came into view; senators talked of politics and power.

I neared the main military building. Yep, you guessed it; I was leading them straight into Roman hands where they would be held in hostile circumstances.

But I never made it; I was just fifteen feet away from the stairs, when they jumped me, literally. They three heavy bodies forced me to hit the stone floor. Several human guards ran over to assist me, only to be decimated by several Infernos. The last I saw before one of the afrits put me out were Roman two afrits came dragging me off.

After I had woken up from my "sleep", I was recalled back to my master. Nothing to exciting; just the praising of Nero "miraculously" retrieving the box back, and my scolding of forcing three afrits to take down the imposter demons, while I took my time getting knocked out pleasantly. Yes, it was **so** pleasant getting knocked out cold.

As for the three annoying afrits and marid, they were put in a silver cell to wait out the night. I rather say they deserved being isolated in a silver box of terror.

Ignoring Nero's smirk 2, we traveled over to another magician for temporary use. Like most high class Romans, he was fat and very weak physically. As a magician, he was merciless with punishments and kept his spirits in line 3. Many of the spirits under his binds could have been running wild and making rude sounds and gestures at their masters. Instead, they were standing straight like in the army like a stiff, and not showing any face but a hard cold one. Though Nero adapted to the same statue pretty well, I felt rather awkward, like the walls were closing on me. But I got by.

Of us ten djinn, five went to the wall to fix up on the "Brother's"4 Work of smashing the wall to smithereens. The rest of us went to the cells to keep an eye on the criminals. Of course, patrolling was always boring, especially if you can't talk, but then, there are always the escapees.

The Three Brothers were in their cell, simply flying, as all six sides were made of silver. They were in excruciating pain for being in a silver cube for more then five hours. Being high spirits, they could last for 24 hours and a bit more if forced to. So they barley managed.

One of the afrits, Michael, was just sweeping around the room, when he saw something unnatural in the walls on the planes. In two small patches along the east wall, had no or little aura around them, meaning, that there was no silver. Curious, he put two small Detonations to the patches. Instead of bouncing off, it did what a Detonation should do; make two holes. Michael peered out the holes, his hopes high. It flew even higher, as he had seen the botanic garden outside. This meant, for those of you too thick to realize, that they three could escape.

Excited, Michael called the other two over. They came over, annoyed by their capture.

"What is it?"

"Just look at this Leo,"

The marid did examine the holes. His upper body jerked up in excitement. After a moment, he turned to the other two afrits. They grinned.

"How can you stand looking out into the boring crowd?" 

The section of the jail that had silver inside to keep the spirits inside tortured without any human effort saw Nero and me stationed side by side. I had only stood there for ten minutes, peering out into the nearby inn to see any peculiar activity, when I felt board. Bartimaeus of Uruk does not do guard patrol! But Nero, Scourge of the Romans did. So I ask him how he could manage to do such a stodgy duty.

"Simply occupy yourself with another activity."

I scowled at him for his stout and unhelpful attitude. A scream and breaking of glass came from the inn I was just watching seconds ago. I didn't care to see the reason behind of disruption.

"Besides, the master we have is fair, and so we should do what he says even if -"

"Even if he punishes us? Nero, Nero, you've got to see that no master is fair or worth a million of us."  
"He is, and don't argue, I know it."

"What makes you think…this is about Ptolemy isn't it?"

Nero ignored that last question-comment. He stared at a shady looking fellow, and then turned away.

"I say, he is the only-, "

"Why are you so grim? Wouldn't you like to have another master just like Ptolemy?"

"Yes I do, but we cannot guess; it's not worth our skin. The master has to make a move to get the spirit's trust, not the other way around,"

Nero started to reply a retort, but I cut him off.

"Okay, so he hasn't punished us all that much. But that fact that he **has** punished us changes everything."

"If needed, a magicians will need to punished his spirit to get him to do his job,"

There was a loud bang behind us. I noticed, but we both ignored it. Let the high and _mighty_ 5 afrits take care of it.

"Well, one there are other ways of punishing and getting the job done, and two— "

I had just realized that the sound was coming from the Brothers' cell.

I turned to the suspected place, muttering curses in different languages, leaving Nero in a confusion of both the languages I was speaking 6 and from my sudden leave. But I knew something fishy was up over there.

And soon, as I walked up the hill with Nero to the prison, a imp with burns and scratches came coughing and words that sounded vaguely and similar to "The Brothers have managed to escape. They have killed all the guards nearby and are freeing all the convicts— and then it collapsed on the grass and rolled down the hill, almost looking lifeless. Nero and I looked at each other in fear; we both had experienced the power of the Brothers.

In no time, a blasted sounded in the wall in front of us. There was a big flash and both Nero and I winced and covered our eyes. When we looked up, a bunch of unshaven and dirty prisoners came running out, screaming in happiness at their freedom. I only wrinkled my nose at the smell of them; let the magicians take care of it, give them a bit of exercise from their orgies and dinners that made them gain a few more pounds and a few more excuses to insult them based on their weight and smell.

"Well…that's quite a of number escapees,"

"Um, if you haven't noticed 'quite a number of escapees' puts it vaguely if you hadn't noticed,"

Scowling at his sarcasm 7, I turned to where his large index finger pointed to. To be quite honest, I was shocked at the number of runaways; close to a four hundred were pouring out of the from prison gates; four hundred is almost half of the prison cells. At the back, they shepherded by the Brothers (the djinni brother managed to catch up with them), who were literally pushing the weak ones falling behind with sharp stakes. All the guards, human and spirit alike, were either knocked out or run over by the fleeing prisoners; or really former prisoners.

"Who cares about the prisoners, lets get the brothers,"

Nero nodded stiffly.

Once most of the prisoners had rushed down to the city to cause havoc, only the brothers remained. Satisfied with the empty jail, they walked past us without seeing Nero and me. Sticking out my foot, I tripped the wide-eyed djinni Brother.

"You! You threw me down the into the forest!"

"Oh yes, I did. Did **you **have a nice trip? Both trips?"

Nero sniggered. The other three frowned at me.

"You got Don?" the afrit Ralph asked both annoyed and amazed.

"Apparently you don't have the skill to be an afrit; you didn't use your planes to see me when you should have since I took a while to keep up,"

"So?"

"RRRRRRR, never mind. Right before we kill you four brutally—"

All four snorted in disbelief. Okay, maybe I couldn't take them all on; one of them is a marid. But with Nero and his unnatural power, there were possibilities…

"We need to know who's your master, that's the important one,"

"And why would we tell you?"

I took a few steps toward the four and leaned in as if I was telling a secret. I was not.

"BECAUSE YOU HATE YOUR MASTER AND YOU WANT TO BE RID OF HIM," As you can see, I said this quite loudly, loud enough for the gray hairs on the Rat-Men afrits to go flying back. The marid I was speaking to winced as I shouted into his ear. Even Nero, who was behind me, half covered his ears. I actually went once so loud so that an entire forest broke out of the ground and the logs fell a couple of miles away. But that's by the by; the interrogation at hand was the important thing at the time.

After some time in which the marid took time to adjust to the sudden change of my shouts and the quiet, empty jail courtyard. Leo blinked several times, and said quietly, "We are loyal to our masters, even if they are annoying mosquitoes,"

"So I take it that as—"

The marid sent a massive Discharge at me, rising blocks of stone all over the ruined court. It was rather miraculous that I survived, and my quick reflexes 8 helped as well.

Nero blew up another part of the walk plus the stones in front of me. As I stumbled back from the exploding Detonations at my feet, bits of granite flew everywhere, and I think even the djinni Brother accidentally swallowed a pebble and, unfortunately, **nearly **choked him to death.

After less then a minute, and the dust had settled, the courtyard had become unrecognizable. All the stones had either been blown to smithereens, or were meters away from their placement. The columns supporting the jail, only several meters away, were pulverized by missed shots; the building was shaking now by the sounds of battle, and the absent support.

I, naturally, had gotten up by now. The Brothers were covered in ashes and dust. Nero mainly was untouched because of his distance from the main fight. The sound of running came not too far away. All five of us were silent, unmoving, waiting for the other. But if anyone wanted to make a move, it was too late; the other high spirits and Roman warriors came, every arrival armed with silver weapons. The four brothers wearily stared at the newcomers. The marid looked at Nero and I.

"You'll be seeing us around," said the marid with a sly grin. Then, in the blink of the eye, they disappeared.

Confused, us spirits searched the planes and scoured the area for abnormal aura with accord to the area. There were no sudden bright spots or low dark colours; they had disappeared without a trace.

1 Actually I felt pretty good after dropping the fellow

2 That got him a trip into the leftover garbage from yesterday

3 This was where my smart mouth got me into pain

4 These four (or really three since I did away the djinni brother) would usually always be summoned altogether, rarely apart.

5 Note the sarcasm

6 Nero knew only some barbarian languages Old English and Latin. I was saying a lot of ancient civilization words, like Old Greek

7 Despite fourth level djinn very hard to control and usually have big mouths, his cracks were, how can I put it, odd

8 Okay, fine, Nero mainly put the shield up for me. How insulting; he saved a better spirit when he could protect himself.

**Thank you for reading, please review; seriously, I have tons of hits but only 8 reviews.**

_**But that's by the by, the last part of "The fall of Rome" will be updated in probably a month. A new character will come and will be a human! Sorry for the time length but I GO TO SCHOOL!**_


	7. Fall of Rome Part 3

**Another Point of View**

_Disclaimer: I do not own the Bartimaeus Trilogy_

_Sorry but this is __**not **__the final chapter in the "Fall of Rome" Part. I need introduce another important character. The next will be the final part._

_Sorry if it seems a bit confusing, I couldn't edit it very well_

**August 21****st****, 476, Rome**

**Alex**

Two days before the incident at the cells, there was going to be a festival in the streets. Everyone was welcome to join with no looks of disgust put at you; all high-class people were unwelcome to join and the people of the high society didn't want to come. If you were a peasant or even a middle class man or women or child, you were among friends.

This festival was twice a year, once in early June to celebrate the beginning of the most pleasant and most rich time of the year, and in late August to see the real day of summer and for the politicians, to keep the commoners happy. The celebration was split into three parts; the first lasted about 90 minutes. It was a time to meet up with friends and family from outside Rome or busy friends. There was light ale put on many tables to first quench the thirst of the peasants. Then, four, maybe five if a lot of people came, large tables with places filled with food and mugs full of beer, was set up on the streets. The time before the tables were put away and the food left on the streets to rot, was approximately four hours. The last five hours was for entertainment. Shows and games would be situated and ready to face the large crowd, bored now that the feast was over. Stalls with sweetmeats and fun toys were on sale for an inexpensive cost. The entire festival was ten and a half hours long, starting from 2:30 am and ended close to midnight.

In the house of Dunn, everyone was excited. Little Agrippa, who barley knew any words, said only words of the carnival. The twins Alair and Aeolius, who were shunted by most Romans because of tales of evil twins, couldn't wait to meet their friends. Even tall Eloy, who was as strong as an ox and smart as the local rabbi, couldn't hide the fact that he never thought the fair was boring, despite seeing nineteen summers.

But Alex was the most excited of the five. Only two week ago, he felt nearly like killing himself. But now, he saw life in a different way; he seemed to enjoy everything and acted as if he had no worries. And this enormous emotion of happiness all came at one time.

It all started three weeks ago. Alex was simply with his mother, Vibia at the market, when he saw something very odd. At the door of a carpenter, was a thing with tentacles and thousands of thousands of eyes everywhere, even a couple in-between its leg…

Alex was at first fascinated, but then scared. And at the last minute, felt like laughing. And he did, quietly. But even though it was a light chuckle, his mother heard Alex and scowled him.

"But that thing…"

"What thing?"

"Weird…thing with eyes and arms like an octopus…"

His mother peered to where Alex pointed to the supposed octopus spider thing was.

"That's just some carpenter's assistant,"

"No it isn't…well it is on this window,"

"What are you talking about Alex?"

Alex had no idea either. If he sort of let his eyes unfocused, there would be seven windows, each overlapping each other. On the first six, there was just a carpenter's boy. But there were weird colours on each window except for the first one. And on the seventh window, the weird thing was in the place of the carpenter's assistant and the colours were even more vivid and bright, even the dark colours were almost unbearable to see.

Their argument continued until finally, Alex was impatient.

"I SAW IT! OKAY?"

Everyone who were shopping or walking, stopped what he or she were doing to see where the source of the outburst was, especially the weird creature. Alex felt embarrassed at his rage.

Alex was then kept in, not allowed to go outside or anything else to occupy himself. He stayed in bed, the local general practitioner saw no problem, and only that he could have been dehydrated. Despite Alex's protests, for the rest of the day, he was to stay in. A couple of days after that incident, when Alex was finally allowed outside, he was not welcome back. All the neighbors avoided them, not wanting to be rude, for his parents were important bakers to the local community. When Alex reluctantly stepped into the market to buy some sugar, all those that heard of the incident gave him strange looks. Most, when they heard of the thing, were simply shocked. Most had though of he as a boy that would exceed the grim of the Roman streets to be an important senator or a feared general, not some psychopath wanting attention.

The only reason the spice traders gave him the sugar was because them and Alex's family had an unwritten contract and also because Alex's family were important patrons. But the ones at the counter didn't look at him in the eye and barley talked, only to when necessary.

Alex, on the way back home, bumped literally into his friends, almost spilling the sugar. Brightening up at the sight of them, he expressed his relief.

"Oh, thank goodness there's someone I can trust, look…"

But his "friends" didn't show the same relief as Alex. Some went past him; some shoved him on the way behind Alex, and some talked to him. Some talked to him like they didn't know him (they were the kind ones) and others talked to him straight.

"Don't talk to us freak,"

"Yeah, 'BUT I REALLY DID SEE IT!'"

They laughed and pushed him aside. It was rather a miracle that the bag of sugar didn't spill.

One girl stayed behind the group. She tried to walk past Alex quickly, but he stopped her.

"Not you too,"

She responded without looking at Alex.

"Sorry Alex, most of us were…forced by our parents not to…talk to you,"

She ran away, and blended into the crowd.

After trudging home with a low spirit, Alex entered through the back door that was only an entrance to the Dunns.

---

His house was a villa that was in the midst of a group of other villas. However, the Dunns' was the biggest out of all the villas. At the ground floor, in the front bit of the house, were the store and the bakery kitchen. This was the profit area, were the Dunns got their source of money and goods. It was open from sunrise, to sundown. And since the sun followed the seasons, so did the bakers. In the winter, it was only open from ten to five. However, the villa was so huge, it could also act as an inn; not including the store floor, there were three levels. The back of the store floor was the family dinning room. The next level, after walking up the shinny oak stairs, were the rooms of entertainment and the toilets located. The third floor had all eight bedrooms, all about the same size; ten meters by seven. And finally, the attic, posed as storage for all the flour and wheat. And many friends who were just passing through Rome would stay in the Dunn's house. Some were sisters of the father of the Dunn house. Others were brothers of the head mother. The children's grandparents came a few times, and cousins arrived during the Roman holidays.

When Alex came into the storefront, it was busy as usual. In the front, Alex's father was handling the front counter, giving our bread that was wrapped in a fine brown paper, carefully wrapped by the twins. As Alex went to the back, his father called out, "Jorge is here to see you!"

Jorge was the teacher of Emperor's family. He was originally a slave captured in a war, but after his superior mind skills were uncovered, he quickly became famous throughout the known world. Every barbarian tribe heard of him, especially those who were defeated by his personal legion. Those in Asia whispered tales of how he transported the finest silk from China to Rome in a matter of days. These unknown tribes in Africa and South America said of an old sage who could control the evil of the world. But behind the tales of unbelievable marvels, he was a middle-aged man who could explain the hardest questions, and a person who looked like a kind, but hardened man. Despite his fame, he always was in the middle class area, and seemed pleased to be there.

Now that he looked about fifty, he settled down in the cul-de-sac of Alex's family's. Jorge was a frequent customer of the bakers, but most of his visits were not to buy bread, but because of Alex; the first time Jorge came in to the shop, it was a lazy day. Barley any customers came because of the heat wave, but Jorge didn't seem to mind. He walked into the warm shop, without any sweat appearing on any surface of his face. He was there to simply buy a loaf of bread, when he saw Alex. Alex was there that day to watch the counter, though really it was a boring job that day. The only good duty to do on a hot day is baking. The oven didn't need to be heated to bake bread. All one had to do is go up to the attic, wait a few hours, and retrieve it back down. So while his siblings were laughing at each other's floury face, Alex was out front in the heat.

Jorge was simply interested in him because he was pretending to read a book. Jorge had entered the glass door, which was rare in the neighborhood despite it being middle class, in when Alex was desperately trying to read the Bible, which everyone in the family had. But only Alex's father and brother, Elroy, knew how to read. Jorge had noticed his failed attempts to read by his scrutinized face. Alex quickly put away the book, but the frustrated look hadn't gone away.

"How may I help you sir?"

"A loaf of bread please,"

As Alex bent down to get one, Jorge mildly observed the plain room.

"You know if you want to know to read…"

Alex bumped his head as he stood up suddenly.

"How did you know?"

Jorge smiled.

"It doesn't matter; do you want to read?"

"Like you can teach me," Alex slated his eyes as he studied Jorge more.

"Oh, you don't know who I am. Rule one, never assume nor presume without knowledge."

And from that day, that conversation, Alex and his family became friends with Jorge. He taught Alex how to read, write and other skills such survival and small inference. He showed Alex how to speak properly in the presence of royalty and to talk your way out of places, not like a thief, but like a common man in the wrong place in the wrong time.

Now, Alex felt like it was all over; his tutor wouldn't teach him any wonderful things. Alex hoped that he could lean on Jorge to explain things out, but it seemed that he was alone.

"Where is he?"

His father replied, "With your mother, just look for her on the second floor."

Alex passed through the kitchen behind the front room, nodded at his brothers and sister, and crossed the kitchen, into the dinning room, up the stairs and to the communications room.

The communications room was similar to a family room. There were seats that were comfortable enough to sit on for several hours, something the Dunns had to do if one of the rich came. And when that happened, fruits would be put on tables, the room would be spotless, and the fire would be cracking, not matter what the temperature was. And when things needed to be smoothed out, this was the room to do it.

Now the room was extremely cold and seemed to be like their humongous icebox downstairs. With the abnormal aloofness outside, it was like winter in the room.

Both Alex's mother and Jorge were sitting at the card table. It was a rare ash table that could hold just half a ton. The seats at it matched its tone and style.

The room seemed colder it did by the threshold of the door. It felt as if numerous ghosts had inhabited the room and were sweeping down everywhere and were choosing a soul to inhabit. Though Alex's mother shivered slightly, Jorge didn't seem to mind.

"Ah, Alex, you have arrived. Your mother tells me of your horrible situation. Please, sit down,"

Jorge gestured Alex to a seat. After Alex had suspiciously sat down, he stared at his mother in both slight anger and wild confusion. She had an equally confused look in her eyes. Some laughter came from downstairs to get a strange feeling in the air. Though Jorge was examining a piece of parchment he brought with him and both Dunns were silent, it was rather clear on how tense the atmosphere was.

"Well first off, I would like to make my support for you clear; I highly doubt a intelligent child like you would be insane. You are just as sane as I am."

And most people would think that I am crazier then they thought I was, thought Alex. Indeed, Jorge had been doing wild things lately. For example, he bought lots of silver items in bulk without wearing them or giving to anyone as a present. And when Alex tried to explore his house once when he was invited for tea, Alex could find a single piece of jewelry that was seen on the day of delivery. Only a few silver items were found: two crucifixes, a candleholder, and coins.

"Now to the hard stuff. We got to get the locals to know you're not insane. It is essential to your future."

"That's going to be hard Jorge…"

"Naturally. But…oh, my back… I am old after all. Vibia, could you get my ointment please. It's at my home, second floor, drawer. Thank you dear…"

"I could get it,"

"Oh no, Alex," said Jorge as Vibia, Alex's mother, left the room.

"We have some important things now…"

Jorge, with amazing speed, walked quickly to the door and closed it. He then he walked toward Alex.

"Listen, we don't have much time before your mother comes back and there are lots of things to explain."

"What…"

"Hush and let me do the talking. I am not what everyone thinks I am. I am more then the slave captive. I am more then the royal family's former personal tutor. I am…"

Then all of a sudden, a whirl of dust wrapped around Jorge. I could barley see him through the tears in my eyes and the heavy sneezes and coughs. Shadows flew around the figure of Jorge, who had his arms up high as if asking God for forgiveness. After what felt like days, the dust settled, and there, stood a man. A very old man with an eye patch on, a yellow toga, and dirty sandals stood where Jorge should be. He had dark large eyes, even darker black hair, and had a very tanned skin. He was very thin and lean, but his wrinkles on his face were very noticeable.

"Whoa! Are you…"

"Yes, now hush and like I said, let me do the talking. I am a veneficus immortalis, a wizard who is immortal to time. I go time to time to places to help the situation wherever I am. I always have an apprentice with me to pass my talents and my job to. However, my former one…died. So I have seen that you are suitable for the job, and I shall offer you the duty. But no one must know, not even your parents. So, I shall tell them that you are a whacko who can be brought back to health. I will say that I will doctor you back to sanity. That is all that I can say now. Is this all clear?"

Of course this wouldn't be clear. Suddenly discovering that mythical things exist and that he is looking at one always shocks the hell out of an apprentice magician. Alex was staring unblinkingly at what seemed to be Jorge. After a long time in which Alex's mother just might be coming up the stairs, Alex finally spoke.

"So let me get this clear; I am capable, me, the insane baker guy, of becoming a magician, like the ones the emperor has?"

"No. Those do not have true power. They can summon demons that can do almost anything to their will. They themselves can do nothing."

"And you can?"

"Why yes; I can stop time temporarily. Or else your mother would have came up by now,"

Not believing such nonsense, Alex ran from the room downstairs to escape this craziness. But as he came down the stairs, he ran into his mother.

"Oh, sorry mother…"

She was still as a statue and was staring right into his eyes. Alex backed away, wide eyed; dropping the tray he took from his mother's hands. Then the boy scrambled into the kitchen. There was quite a scene there. The twins were throwing flour at each other but the bits of dough frozen in mid-air caused Alex's jaw to probably go by an extra few centimeters past the limits. Alex went up to pick a piece of dough out of the air, only to knock loaf of bread from his father's hands. Scrambling to pick it up, as he looked up, he saw his father too frozen. It appeared that he was yelling at the twins to stop fooling around.

After ten minutes, during the time where Alex gapingly examined every stationary figure in the shop, he returned to the communications room, stooping as if he had ran a thousand miles. Jorge smiled pleasantly. Alex took his seat with an air of unconsciousness.

"And that's just for thirty minutes. I froze time once for over half a day. There's also the Calming stare I can do, and the…"

"Okay, okay, I'll take the job. But I have questions."

"Excellent! I knew you would with a little persuasion. Now what were those questions?"

Alex took a while to get his breath back, and when he did, many moments passed with nerving silence. As soon as Alex found what his questions were, he began.

"So…you're a magician, like the ones the emperor has?"

"Oh no, no. I can summon demons too, but I can do more. Magicians can only summon demons and no more. They know something that everyone can learn. Every person there is in the world can learn the magicians' so-called magic with hard work, a good mind and lots of energy. Without their demons, they would be as powerless as us. They cannot do Detonations or any other magical spell to defend themselves without demons. I however have something that no body can learn, to be born with it only. And you, have the gift, Alexander Dunn."

Alex felt dwarfed by this powerful ending. No one had called him his full name before, never. And hearing he had some kind of gift gave Alex's soul a bit of a lift.

"But I've never done anything out of the ordinary, never—"

"Oh but you have. This change of events has made you forget about your little insane incident."

This dawned on Alex. This was rather, new to hear, he, Alex Dunn to have some kind of gift, a "talent". Who would ever have knew.

"So…that was a skill?"

"Yes it was. It was a skill to see through demon disguises."

"Disguises?"

Jorge extended the time hold to explain the concepts of demons and their skills, and his skills, which Alex also had. He explained the planes and how he and Alex could also see on the planes. Jorge showed how to do the basic things: a light demon repelling shock wave, the way to flip through the planes and how it is possible to freeze certain demons and magical objects for a short time.

"Now, the time should now unfreeze. I shall go downstairs, talk to your mother about the therapy, and we will meet again in a week for the "therapy". Try practicing those skills I showed you. Oh! I almost forgot. This is the most important thing. This,"

Jorge took out from his pocket, a silver pendant in the shape of a teardrop. He gave it by the green string to Alex. He stared at it in a bit of confusion.

"Not only does it protect you from demons (I'll explain why in a week) but it shows you are a one of us; veneficus immortalis. Every one of us will have one. Now I must go now,"

"Wait, there are other veneficus immortalis?"

But Jorge had already gone downstairs in his usual form and time had started again.

---

Alex had managed to survive the frustration of being kept in by only going to for a walk in the evening and working in the kitchen. Alex presumed that he was allowed to only work in the kitchen because Jorge told Alex's mother that Alex had problems.

In his breaks and at dusk and dawn, Alex practiced freezing a pot so that it didn't smash. He played around with the planes, and on his walks, he hid himself as he checked the sentries in the area and saw either small demon like figures with tails and strange hands, or large crazy monsters, some larger then others. Jorge had come over half through the week to give him a book on the types of demons, the sub-classes and the spells that they and Alex could do. In the book, it showed how to summon minor spirits such as imps using certain herbs and a pentacle. But Alex never got the chalk or any other supplies. He never wanted to buy any.

His family noticed something was going on. While some thought he actually was crazy, like going outside at night after curfew. But one figured out that something planned was going on.

Eloy decided to talk to Alex while they both were in the kitchen. As both kneaded the dough, Eloy asked then.

"What's going on? I mean, you're locking yourself up in your room, bangs are going off in there, you found out how to read and you're not reading the Bible,"

"Maybe because I'm crazy."

"Crazy people don't think their crazy."

For a moment, Alex didn't have a comeback.

"Jorge showed me how to read,"

"Why would he, he thinks you're psycho,"

From the moment he said it Eloy regretted it. But Alex didn't seem to mind. They just kept kneading the dough.

Eloy attempted to get more information, even once going out behind Alex at night. Alex had to save him from the guards.

As they both trudged in, cheeks rosy from the unusually cold night, they started to talk.

"You come out during curfew and nearly get caught, all because you wanted to talk to me. Gee, what did you want to tell me?"

"Oh ha, ha. Like I said earlier today, something is up. How come you go out on curfew just to take a walk?"

Alex scowled and thought about just suddenly ditching this conversation, but he knew that wouldn't help. Eloy would keep nagging at him until something bad happened. The matter would never get settled by time. There were a few ways to handle this, and most were irrational.

Still, he had to keep it secret. So Alex left the room reluctantly without a warning.

---

Finally, when Alex perfected everything needed, such as memorizing the text about demons and their weaknesses and managed to do a minor Inferno, the week was over.

The morning after the unspoken curfew incident signaled the end of a week since Jorge came. Alex's family had the luxury to each have a bedroom to themselves. Alex had sat up, leaned against the wall on his bed, and waited for the door to open downstairs.

Since it was a Tuesday, the store was open from whenever dawn was, to dusk. Dawn had came early, so all the members of the family had to go downstairs. Alex took his time. He went to the bathroom he and his siblings shared, rubbed his face with the cold water in the bowl, and slowly descended the stairs.

He ate a sugarless pastry and some very diluted ale for breakfast. Feeling a bit sick after the small meal, he slumped into a chair at the front counter. No one would come on such a cold summer day.

After a few minutes, the glass door (which looked very strange with the wooden walls around) opened and Jorge came in. He smiled at Alex then went behind the counter to talk to Alex's parents.

"Where are you taking me?"

"You'll find out,"

Jorge and Alex were walking the empty streets of Rome. They were in a rundown area with several dogs barking and the stench of human waste was heavy. With the scent of rotten meat, the air was almost unbearable to breath. Yet Jorge didn't seem that disturbed by it.

"One of the main skills we have is the ability to not feel hot or cold, or smell unpleasant smells. This talent filters out the bad smells or uncomfortable temperatures and if it is done correctly, it can even put in comfortable smells."

"How can I do it?" No wonder why he doesn't sweat in the summer, thought Alex.

For the next few minutes, Jorge told Alex the words and how to clear his mind of things that would get in the way of spell casting.

"Are you sure magicians can't do this?"

"Well…they can do some things, but much of their power comes from demons. I presume you read that book I gave you?"

"Yes,"

"Good. Hmmm. It seems we are getting closer to our destination." The air did become more bearable (Alex couldn't perform the "Smell Spell") and the neighborhood was in a better shape in this area. No more loose dogs or blind thin beggars.

"I need to tell you the purpose of veneficus immortalis. There are about a thousand in this world who have the official pendant, though there are thousands more who do not realize they are veneficus immortalis. And more are being born. So we are not in desperate need.

"Now, you see, there's a magic cycle that we, veneficus immortalis, have found out. It all starts out, with magicians. Most of the time, magicians, they summon demons to make their enormous power. With demons, they either create a government, or they seize control. Now they govern over the commoners and try to keep the knowledge of magic by harsh meanings.

"However, magic seeps through the empire, creating resilience in the population (on a side note, not all veneficus immortalis have magical resilience, though the best and most influential ones have resilience) and other new abilities. As time passes, more and more people get magical talents, and soon, they rebel. Though there have been times where the rebellions are crushed, the government does get overthrown, and the demons go back to the Other Place, which is where they go when not summoned, until another magical power rises."

Jorge took a few moments to take a breather, but it was not enough time for Alex to digest this new information.

"Now, before, I said that rebellions have been calmed. Most of the time, we, veneficus immortalis, have did that. But mostly what we do is stop the torture of commoners and demons, and other helping things. But we have got together and helped the commoners take over. It does seem better at many times."

They walked a bit further in silence. Some people started to come out of their houses. They mostly walked to the general direction of the Roman Forums. The sun was much more brighter at this time.

"So, you said you help demons too?"  
"Yes. You see, they only reason magicians call demons demons, is that they would backstab them at any chance. And you can't blame demons for that; they are basically like slaves. They must do what their master says, or else they can be severely punished. But some demons, for get that they aren't truly demons and so I know that they have eaten magicians who want to not use them as slaves. Ah, here we are!"

It was a villa in a quiet neighborhood. The walls were white and felt very plain. It seemed to be cared for, and yet was in a bad condition. Grass was at an extremely large height. The windows were grimy and had rust on the shutters. But it seemed someone rich lived here. The planes seemed to tell Alex just that. Plus, the windows had glass. Strangely, more then sixty five percent of the Roman population was dead poor, and a house right here had glass.

Jorge went in with Alex right behind him. Jorge lit a light on his index finger and went down a long hall. It was unadorned; just wood floors and wood walls. As they came to the kitchen, it was a lot more cheerful. At least the walls had colour. They sat down at the table on wobbly chairs, and they waited. After a few minutes which in that time interval Jorge lit a fire in the hearth, the door had opened. And it did numerous more times. Many foot steps sounded in the dark hall. As the figures came in, it was a strange sight.

The first one was a tall black man who had rather decent clothes compared to most of the blacks in Rome; most were slaves captured in wars. He however, had no footwear and didn't seem to mind the odd look of good clothing and no shoes. He had something around his neck. Alex presumed it was also the teardrop pendant. With him, was a man from the East. He was rather short, but Alex knew he was around twenty. He had a bandana on and had nothing else but some pants. He seemed well muscled and in good shape. The teardrop pendant was also on his neck.

The next two to come were women. The first was around forty and seemed to be from Greece. She had lots of clothing on, mostly bright colours. Because of that, a string that showed a sign of a pendant was not in sight. The second apparently just reached the age of a woman. From the Roman Empire, she was mostly an ordinary woman, except for her eyes. They shone brightly with a hard hazel. This made her beautiful.

Another four came in to sit at the spacious table. One was only a boy though he seemed to be an orphan; his face was hard and showed no baby fat like most boys his age (which Alex couldn't tell because of the adultness in his features). His hair was bright ginger and with his red and thin eyebrows showed defiance. His toga was very thin and his chest was shown. The pendant was an excellent thing to make the boy a very short and immature man.

With him was a teenager boy close to of Alex's age. He was weedy and had no pendant with him. But as his tanned, thin had reached into his pocket, a tear shaped thing peaked out. His eyes were a bright, clouded blue and with the right moment of his features, could easily make a very innocent face.

The last two looked to be twins. They were brother and sister, were two years younger then Alex, had the same emerald eyes and the same frown on their face. They had blue robes on and showed their pendant proudly. They were very tall for their age, taller then Alex, who were sixteen.

All ten fit rather comfortably in the small table. Alex felt rather embarrassed to be the only one to not wear the pendant. He hoped they would not notice. He could not put it on now; they would notice and would not approve of that.

"Well I think we should introduce ourselves first. Well, Ali, welcome back from the government. I do hope you have a lot from spying on the emperor," the black one nodded. "Good! Do tell us later. Lewis, Mabel," said Jorge to the twins. "I see the wars with the barbarians aren't going well."

"Yes,"

"We barely came back to Rome with our lives," said Lewis, then Mabel.

"Ah, we will hear all stories. And Celia! What a surprise! I thought you would not be back for another two years,"

"Well Tang didn't do so well, as you heard, so here I am," said the Greece lady with a touch of mock rudeness,

"I didn't like him too much either." Then they both laughed heartily, Mabel, Lewis, Ali, the Asian man and the kid laughing with less enthusiasm.

"Hello Sorty! I see you are in good shape. Your hair is very bright now,"

"Thank you Jorge. And you look young for being so old,"

"And last but not least, Nick! You are extremely well after that terrible accident. And I and sorry about the tongue,"

Nick nodded sadly. At this point, the other two were a bit frightened.

"And now onto the new veneficus immortalis! Here is my boy, Alex! Can you, Nick and Celia, tell us about your apprentices?"

Alex had never seen Jorge so giddy before. He was always serious, and he never laughed. He does enjoy their company, so that should be good of a reason to be so happy. But it seemed like something else was on.

Nick introduced his first. "My boy is sixteen, he is one of the most potential apprentices I have seen. He's not a risk taker (that'll change within the week) but has the best memory and can almost perform an Illusion,"

The older veneficus immortalizes looked impressed. It seemed that the Illusion was extremely hard. Jorge had lightly passed over it with Alex and he had looked into the book. It was a fake image that demons could do at will with barely any effort. But the veneficus immortalizes had to really concentrate; only the ones with the strongest minds could do such a thing in the midst of a battle in barely a blink of the eye.

"He may not look like it, but he is a very professional swordsmen. He is very talented in such skills, but he can easily make simple mistakes in pressured situations and that is Crispian's only true flaw," finished Nick, patting the boy on the head.

Then Celia told them about the girl. "She is just eighteen and seems to be the exact opposite of Crispian. She has an average memory; she can only just do the basics, but is an experienced risk taker. She can handle tough and tight situations very well. So as you see, Lore is the exact reverse of Crispian."

The table nodded. Both Lore and Crispian looked more relaxed as they were praised.

Alex felt nervous. He was neither a risk taker or experienced, nor was he smart. He wondered what Jorge was thinking of him. Alex was extremely thrilled to be here, but then, he felt disgraced.

"You know, Alex here is neither physically strong, he does not have a superb mind, nor is he an often risk taker. But yet, he can be all three. If he needs to, he will push his strength, think past the human mind, and do things you will never imagine. Despite Alex not taken any tests, I know he is this. You could say he's…normal."

Alex didn't think he was this. He didn't think he could do a risk no one could do, nor did he think he could have a great mind. The only part of this miniature speech that he agree with Jorge was that he was normal.

"Nick, Celia, I am sure you told Lore and Crispian about veneficus immortalis' purpose yes? Good. Now, there are about a thousand of us in this world, spread all over the world. We do have many weapons that no one else can use, wield. We can do some djinni magic, but there are many we can only do. We can all come together for one major purpose, but that has only happened three times in mankind's history. I'll go into that later. I may sound a bit rushed, but we don't have much time.

"In Rome right now, there are only us veneficus immortalis. Right now, the government is going to collapse this year. The emperor knows this, and wants to get veneficus immortalis on his side to calm the commoners. But our council (yes we do have consuls) says that it would be a waste of time to try to stop the riots. Besides, Rome has been the power for too long. So, do not go with Roman officials or any other demons; if needed, fight them off. In-between our lives and this life, we need to get the commoners excited, angry. It's best if this overthrow is over and done with as soon as possible. We cannot actually assist in the overthrow. We need to organize the plans and supply the commoners with weapons. But that is the most we can do.

"But that subject is for next meeting! This is to show the apprentices a little light in this confusing matter. Next meeting will be much longer then this short one-hour catch-up. You see, veneficus immortalis wonder the Earth, looking to help as many people, whether it's simply helping with farming, or constructing an overthrow. When something like this happens, we send out birds to the headquarter council. They send what they can to help with the situation. Unfortunately, we are all the council can spare."

The rest of the hour was spent explaining the apprentices' questions. Though most of these were based on history, like, has there been a strike in the council, etc.; a couple was on other subjects.

"Are we going to learn how to summon demons?" asked Lore.

"Yes, but that will not be for quite a time. For now, its just skills for spying, avoiding trouble, and fighting your way out." Replied Ali in a low voice; as if afraid someone might over hear

The other interesting question was from Crispian.

"Are we going to understand the way the veneficus immortalis system works?"

"Why, that is one of the main things you are going to learn now,"

That, Lore, Crispian and Alex did learn. Elections were held ever ten years, councilors had to be over fifty; the bird system was a communication…finally when the surprisingly boring subject was about to conclude, Nick had one last input.

"Oh, and we are not as young as we look; I'm over ninety, Ali is only a five hundred and fifteen, the twins are barley three hundred seven, Jorge is the oldest at over nine hundred, Celia at seven and a half of a hundred, and San (that was Sorty's real name; Sorty was just a nickname) is the youngest at only one hundred."

All three apprentices' mouths had dropped gapingly and stupidly. It wasn't their fault for being unprepared for such information. And what was scarcer was that the other seven found such a concept mildly boring.

"But…how—"

"You see, once you take a vow for veneficus immortalis, you actually stick to the vow; you become immortal to time. It will make your energy a bit lower, but it will be eons before you really succumbed to time. But you cannot truly evade time."

Sorty's high-pitched words cut through them. They…couldn't die from natural causes? This caused many reactions for all three. For Crispian, it was a brilliant happiness. He could see the new developments in technology, and never have fear again. For Lore, she couldn't believe what she was hearing. Celia comes storming into her rundown house, tells her she's some veneficus immortalis, leaves a notebook on skills and information, and leaves her, and comes back in a week for this crap. Even though she won't believe it, she wanted to deem it. For Alex, this information cut him. All his friends and family would perish in a blink of the eye. He would meet new friends, loves, only to have them vanquished. And Alex would be left with this stupid burden of overthrowing governments.

But other things he heard washed this anger and disappointment away. He knew abilities that only a small percent could do. To be better then everyone, even the despicable magicians would be lower. And demons, he would learn how to have help and company. And he had the excitement that he enjoyed, and the things he could learn! Quite the contrary of most in his neighborhood, he wanted to learn things. After being harassed by the magical government at a young age, he wanted to do anything better then the magicians. People who heard this from Alex dismissed him as being too ambitious; sure, maybe he could be a respected general or councilor, but they thought that magicians would always control lives. But now, he was the best in the world!

These ideas thrilled Alex. He only barely managed to hear the others words.

After a long talk about the things that would be learned, and a new book to practice from, they were put into the room beside the kitchen, which was always going to be full. As the other seven talked of current issues, the three were to get along; they would be as a team for quite a bit of time.

At first, they were silent. Alex just read his book, Crispian practiced little spells, and Lore observed both of them. For a few minutes, they were silent, secretly trying to listen in on the elder veneficus immortalis' conversation.

"Seriously, since we're going to be veneficus immortalis, shouldn't we at least hear what's up in the world?"

Crispian stopped doing Infernos and Alex put his book down to frown at Lore. She was by the closed door, trying to hear what the words were, putting her right ear on every corner.

"Yeah, but what are we going to do?" asked Crispian. "We can't barge in obviously, and the door is too thick to hear anything, so, what do we do?"

Alex pondered on this for a while, hardly hearing the other two squabble.

"Look, why don't you go back to practicing your Illusion? You're no use being negative,"

There was a section in the notebook Jorge gave Alex about an extending hearing spell…

"But you can't deny that it's impossible to hear anything…"

Actually there were two sections, one about far distance, one on thickness.

"Well I don't care, I never give up. Losers give up,"

How true, thought Alex, but he brushed that thought aside. The one on hearing through walls…

"Hey, hey, no need to get insulting here. What are you going to do, eh?"

Dang, if those two weren't arguing so much, I could remember how to do it. Or Crispian could do it…

"Shush, you're making my ideas going away—"

Alex cut Lore off. "Crispian, can you do an amplified Sound Barrier Descyer?"

Crispian made a face. "Don't go on her side now—"

"I don't care about you're stupid argument. I want to hear what's up in that room!"

Both faces brightened. "Yeah…you're right Alex…Crispian, can you do one?"

He brightened at the other two's indirect praise of him. "I certainly can," Lore rolled her eyes at his boaster and shook her head. Alex smiled at this and carried on.

"Good, cast one on each of us and will listen in."

Crispian did this in short time. All three put themselves to the door, and utilized the temporary power.

"…And the man said, Mr. Powers, can you tell me which direction I'm in? And Mr. Powers replied, "I do think you're in the right direction!"

Everyone in the room laughed. Either they missed something that, one, didn't make the joke too funny and two, were telling jokes instead of relaying news.

"Wait a minute, something isn't right…"

"Gee, you think, using a great magician for a crude joke!"

"Shut up Crispian. Wonder how they praised you so much for your cleverness; I'm talking about the joke; why would they joke if…"

Lore frowned, then her eyes widened in surprise. Alex interpreted this.

"You mean…"

"We need to barge in,"

"No, we need someone to take a peek without being sighted,"

"What are you two talking about? Why do we have do get in there?"

"You really are stupid," said Lore. "Don't you see they know we're listening in?"

Finally, Crispian got it. There was silence then.

"How about a See-Through Inversion? That would work and we could listen in too."

Both Lore and Crispian looked at him strangely. Alex ignored this and instead, noticed how similar both looked. Both had blond hair, both were about the same height, etc. They could have been siblings if they didn't have their frequent arguments and totally different eye colour. Oddly, Alex could see as a good pair. He quickly brushed this thought aside.

"That would work,"

"Nice idea,"

Silently cheering up at their eulogizing, Alex, now with the Inversion and the Sound Barrier spell, looked into the door. All seven had cups in their hands. They were loudly talking and laughing quite joyously. But also Alex noticed that they were waiting for something.

Suddenly, Lore got up, opened the door loudly to see what was going on in this odd scene. Crispian had tried to stop her, but Alex made no move; he would have done the same thing himself.

Lore started having a mini fit. It was so loud, that Alex could only the general meaning her strident blabber. About how they were lied to and coped up in a small room while the other veneficus immortalis were having fun and the rest was confusing.

After her spasm was over, and Crispian had let down his ears. The first thing anyone said was by Jorge, "First, nice Voice Enrichment Miss Par and—"

"I DON'T CARE I 'NICE' IT WAS, YOU LIED—"

"Calm down Lore!" said Ali in his slow voice. Lore stopped, and sat down at one of the chairs sourly. Alex and Crispian also sat in their seats, a bit afraid of sitting beside Lore.

"Yes, I will not deny we lied, but it was for a purpose; to test you. Any good veneficus would have noticed why we would keep our own apprentices out of the news. And of course, you noticed,"

All three of the tyros looked at each other. Instead of the expected lecture, a pat on the back was given.

"Who found out our hoax meeting? Or at least deduced about it?" asked Sorty?

Lore raised her hand immediately. Crispian seemed envy about it.

All seven elder veneficus nodded.

"And who choose to do the See Through Inversion and the Sound Barrier Descyer?" asked Nick, who was by the door Alex, Lore and Crispian just barged through.

Alex this time raised his hand, a bit reluctantly. Crispian looked even more jealous of both Lore and Alex.

"And I believe my apprentice, Crispian, did those spells," said Sorty, a bit proud of it.

"Yes sir," said all three-novice veneficus. They were a slightly confused at their union statement.

Jorge smiled at this. Slowly, everyone did. Sorty with his red hair showing his happiness, and the twins, looking hopeful, Nick, at the door with his muscles bulging, and Ali, his pearl white teeth showing in the dusk room. But the ones that grinned the most were Alex, Lore and Crispian. Silently rejoicing, they were startled and pleased at when the veneficus immortalizes clapped loudly at the three's achievement.

In the midst of the applause, Jorge announced, "You are now officially, veneficus immortalizes trainees."

Emerging from the hideout jovial, the three soon realized how close they lived together. As tradition after the first meeting, the masters accompanied their trainees back home. As Alex, Crispian and Lore with their new masters, waved goodbye to the other four, they walked down the same path. The three novices talked rather animatedly and the older three murmured small conversations. As the sun rose high at noon and the three finished talking about the festival, Alex had an idea.

"Hey, how about you two come to my house for lunch?"

The other two were to some extent taken back. They barely knew each other and he was inviting them. But, all three already liked each other, despite the many arguments Lore and Crispian had (they had several on the walk back). Except their life at home made things difficult.

They muttered excuses and didn't continue. This silence continued where all three parted at a three-way crossroad, each going a different way; Alex up the north one, Lore to the east, on the left street, and Crispian to the west. They parted and went they're different ways.

Alex passed a small cul-de-sac and into the outskirts of his middle-class neighborhood. Several kids ran by, nearly hitting Jorge, who was following Alex behind him, only to run into Alex.

He realized that they were some of his old friends. By now, Alex had classified his old friends into three classes. The first were the best, they wanted to talk to him, but couldn't, thanks to their elders. And most of these were his closest friends. The second class was people who ignored him, to a harsher degree. They considered their parents a lot more important then friends, but the only reason they weren't meaner, was they couldn't stand to be like that. The third class was the meanest. They were the ones who harassed Alex and verbally abused him with a hesitation. Not surprisingly, their parents were rich; because of that, the parents didn't want to be known for being friends with an insane family, so they told their kids to show how much they thought Alex was scum. And a couple did the abuse on their own account. And unfortunately, the kids then were in Alex's third class.

"Hey, dummy,"

"How was your, 'therapy'?"

"Yeah, what did you do, scribble?"

"Release your anger?"

"That's what Jorge's therapy is,"

They were laughing so hard, that their togas fell up and their features were a blur. Alex would have loved to put an Inferno to them and would have, had Jorge not interfered.

"Hello boys, bet your elders are worried."

All seven boys stopped laughing almost immediately and sobered up. They stood up straighter, their features became stone, and they made their togas more presentable. Some had fear in their eyes.

"I think you should be more better; you are in high class; show the people respect of yourself. Now scram before I snitch on you,"

They didn't need more then that to flee, running so fast they were kicking the behinds.

After the dust settled, Alex turned to Jorge, who was looking after seven figures on the horizon.

"Why didn't you let me unleash hell on them?"

"Didn't I tell you to keep your power secret?" scolded Jorge. "And it doesn't matter what they did, you are better then them!"

Looking very small, Alex continued walking on home. Revenge would be sweet.

---

In the middle of the week before the meeting, Alex was taking a walk in the three-way crossway. He had just slipped out of the way of what seemed to be a minor djinni. He his notebook had told him how to vaguely tell the levels of demons using the planes. After the dog demon ran into the next street, Alex got up from the shadows, and went past the three-way crossway and into the high-class road.

No stray dogs here. No rust, litter, or disrespectable smells. But lots of high djinn. Alex had to hop a fence to get out of the way of a particularly putrid demon in the form of hunched soldier. As it sniffed and continued its way, Alex peeked out and saw dozens of djinn walking the stone road. Upon seeing this, he bent down immediately and sat in a lawn. The waxing Gibbous moon shown brightly and nearly showed Alex's hideout. Seeing this, Alex hoped out of the light and into the next house's front lawn, which was completely dark. Alex decided to wait it out here until he found an opening to leave through.

But there wouldn't be any. A few days ago, a massive attack on this area created quite a few magical items to disappear. No one knew what happened. The mysterious thief (or thieves) did this very quietly; everyone was asleep and all the police and spirits were dead. Now, this bunch had come to make sure none of the magicians die.

Alex decided to just wait until dawn; his family wouldn't notice.

But of course, that wouldn't happen.

One magician stepped out of his house to watch the demons carefully guard his house. He was thankful that they were regular djinn; any other subclass djinn would have eaten him by now.

As he gazed at the moon, he wondered how his two slaves were doing down there…

While he was turning around, he saw a figure in his front yard. Peering at it, he saw it was a boy. He called up a foliot to take care of the boy. But then the magician bent down to see the show unravel.

Alex was about to get forty winks when he heard a flying noise. He opened his eyes a bit reluctantly, and dived out of the way of a huge energy spark.

The foliot was a bit disappointed at first but kept doing attacks at the boy. Finally, he hit him, but it barley did any damage. The boy then took advantage of its shock, smashed the spirit into the fence and turned to pulp in Alex's hand. He wiped it on the grass and then hopped into the next house's lawn.

The magician was impressed for a bit. Then he was confused. After recuperating from his surprise, the magician quickly ran into a room inside his house, and summoned one of his demons.

Bartimaeus was rather irritable when his master called him into a pentacle instead of just walking a few feet to him. As he materialized, he began his complaints.

"For a ex-army person, I didn't realize you would become this lazy. But that is what fame and fortune do to people; that is why I resist such privileges…"

"Hush. I need you to round out the other demons. There's an intruder and he can resist magic. Go now,"

"Can he now? Well, that is expected…how powerful is it?"

"GO!"

Bartimaeus' bowels began to tear to shreds. He went outside in a puff of smoke.

Sighing, the magician walked out to his door to see chaos.

Alex knew that the man who sent the foliot was a powerful one. Djinn were throwing Detonations all over him. A whistle blew out. The soldiers were coming.

Alex couldn't make a run for it; he couldn't put his family in danger. So he dove into an open window into a well-done house. The sound of boots came into the road. The magician, the spirits and the army men got together and made some sort of plan. Four groups began combing the area, checking every nook and cranny. But they apparently didn't think one would go into a house.

Relieved, Alex moved away from the window and sat in a chair at a dinning table. He would just sleep for a few hours, wait till curfew was off, and then run back home before the sun rose and before his family rose with the sun.

So Alex would have slept there if a boy hadn't walked in.

He was one of Alex's third class friends. All of the third classes were there that night. They were at a sleepover, something not very common in Rome and especially in the high-class society. Many were awake and causing havoc in the room they were sleeping in. One had just gone to get a pitcher of water.

Alex tried to get hidden, but already the boy had seen him. It was one of the ringleaders, though not very big; he was tall for his age. He was rather clever and sort of a lady's man. Though there was no such term in 476. His rare blue eyes and black hair made him stand out, as these two characteristics were strange. The last time Alex had seen the boy, he looked weak. Now the boy (age 18 really; not a boy but shorter then a average man made him seem like a boy) was tanned a bit, his chest bulky, all those other traits.

Alex and he stood staring at each other. Then the boy glanced at the open window. He muttered a name followed by a curse.

"I see you are definitely insane Alex; you go walking during curfew, you go into a rich, heavily guarded area, and you go jump through an open window. And now, you're about to get killed. Any last words?"

Alex smiled at his old friend's sarcastic like voice, though his words were not at all a joke.

"Actually I have quite a few. One, I'm not insane; everything has a reason or two, two: I think you suck because you have to do what ever your parents say," Alex paused only to catch his breath and see the boy's expression. He was a bit annoyed about the parent part.

"And why am I about to get killed? From your girlfriends?"

The boy's ears turn red. He wasn't very proud of the large amount of them, or maybe he wasn't proud because his parents didn't approve.

The boy tusked.

"My, my Alex, I thought you had a bit of intelligence to not mess with magicians, if you get my drift."

Alex's defying eyes flickered for a moment of shocking comprehension. But the boy was too proud and triumphant to notice the temporary vulnerability.

"You see, the magicians from court saw my potential—"

"Wow, then standards drop pretty fast and deep, huh?"

"And took me in. I can now summon a djinni with a clap of the hands. It's only a level two, but it will definitely kill you."

"Really, you think?"

A shadow came from the hall behind them. The boy grinned in anticipation. Alex was calm, which scared the hell out of the boy. Panicking, he got two more imps to assist the djinni.

As all five started at each other, one in defiance, one in fear, and the other three blankly, the other rich boys walked into the kitchen, shouting loudly. All had an imp beside their shoulder. Alex noticed this without a surprise. All seven boys were not dazed to see Alex in their house. Instead, more demons appeared in large numbers.

"I see not only that you betray me, and not that you seek to kill me, but that you joined the selfish magicians; then again, you are rather cruel."

All seven's apparent pride was quickly dashed out by this new insult. They growled curses and other unspeakables at him. Alex's confidence increased from this, quite the contrary of what the new mages expected to happen.

"Without us, there would be no you,"

"Without you, there would be no curfew or any other stupid orders."

"Without we magicians, the government would be hanging on a thread,"

"Without magicians, there would be peace,"

Such talk was between Alex and the seven boys. Suddenly, after five minutes of straight affronts, commands in a different language were said, and the djinni and the other imps and foliots ran at Alex.

He smiled, and then held out a hand. A huge wave of energy made the air around them dead and causing the spirits to stop frozen. Smiling smugly, Alex dashed out the door and setting of the nexus alarm. Alex saw this but didn't care; he was out of here.

Nero saw immediately the boy sprint out of a house and into the street. With something in his hand, he fended off two djinn and ran off to the crossroads.

Nero, whistling as hard as he could, ran down the street in pursuit of the boy. Bartimaeus was loitering on a fence. He stuck out a food, and did a job with considerably less energy then his fellow spirits.

Alex only recovered by rolling on the hard stone road and continuing his way. A bit surprised by his comeback, the djinni sent off a Detonation, only to have it absorbed by the boy. Slightly shouting, Alex finally came down to the path, and stayed there for a bit of time.

Bartimaeus shoved a level two djinni out of the way and got the teen by the neck. He only got a quick peek at Alex before something silver stabbed into his abdomen.

While he was distracted, Alex crawled away rapidly, trying to make as little sound as possible.

But of course, that wouldn't happen.

When barley a minute passed, Alex was pinned by two djinn on a fence. A magician came to Alex, followed by the boy, who looked very smug right now.

Alex looked sourly at the boy, who blew a raspberry at him. The tall-scarred magician smiled at this.

"You know boy, I am rather impressed,"

"I'm not a boy,"

"SILENCE!"

The word echoed into the darkness. No one winced except for the boy, and that ruined the effect the man was looking for.

"I am impressed that you manage to avoid 12 djinn, a bunch of imps, kill a foliot and nearly get away with it. But the government does not make deals with common thieves, no matter how impressive his thievery was,"

"I didn't steal those things last night,"

"But my demon here saw you," The magician gestured to the slave that tripped Alex, and who winced at the word, "Demon".

"May I say—"

"No you may not Bartimaeus. I credit you and you don't want it,"

"Of course I don't, since—"

"Shush Bartimaeus,"

"Oh don't get in this Nero…"

While the two demons and their master were arguing, Alex was muttering a spell that involved the silver pendant on his neck.

Finally, Alex finished, and waited for the effect.

It didn't take long to show. An invisible wave of silver and loud sounds ran through out the street. All the spirits were rolling on the floor in pain. The boy and the mage were cupping their ears to block out the cries of a banshee. This spell had no effect on Alex or anyone else in the neighborhood, as Alex commanded.

As Alex ran past the crossroads and into his home, he had vengeance on his mind.

**Part 2**

_(A.N if the chapter is very long, there will be two parts)_

The next few days were spent in the run down hideout. Lore, Crispian and Alex learned quite a lot in only a few days. A schedule was set up for the veneficus immortalizes. The first half an hour was spent on the latest news and rumors. Some were of great importance; others were just a bit amusing.

The next hour was spent on making the mind at serenity. This was extremely important if spells were to be cast. Then a review of those spells was done, followed by the practice of the spells.

The next hour was physical, mostly endurance and swiftness. Strength was a bonus, not a request. Swiftness would be needed when doing intelligence work, and endurance to last long to escape tight situation during intelligence work. Making one hidden was part of physical.

Intelligence was followed immediately. Quick thinking and the ability to see through lies and disguises and puzzles. A good memory was good to have when in a hitch or danger.

Later, magical knowledge would be the last thing. Master taught pupil the basics: the spirit essence, the pentacle like how to drawn one properly, the ancient languages and basic non-magical protection.

"When will we summon demons?" always asked Alex when he and his other two friends took out their magic books.

"In time," Jorge would say to Alex's ambition.

Meanwhile, the other veneficus, though without a student, were busy themselves.

They were spying on the government and ratifying the commoner resistance. Dozens of thefts were carried out each day without a trace, despite many demons on duty. Magicians were found dead or very wounded each day. Strain was put on the emperor, especially since the other veneficus had the army silently cause interruptions and sabotage equipment. Though some of the army rebels were caught, the administration was completely baffled on who the mutineers were and how they bypassed demon protection. This made the commoners considerably happy. But it was rather a marvel that the festival was still on; the armed police were not kind with their captured criminals lately and taxes were raised. But keeping the festival would be better for the magicians and tightening the commoners would only aggravate their situation.

Finally, over a time interval of two weeks, all the necessary skills were learned. The apprentices were no more novices. They could be put in the wild with only the clothes on their back, and still survive. They could nearly summon a demon without exhausting themselves or putting them selves to danger. To put all the achievements at short, they were true veneficus immortalizes.

Well, almost. They didn't get the immortalis part yet; before they got the spell put on them, they were to have a hard test that never proves to fail one's true accomplishment.

One morning that was much hotter then the abnormal cold summer days, everyone gathered around the kitchen table as usual. Jorge would be at the head of the table, and Ali, the second, at the other side. The other eight would randomly sit in any chair, though Alex had to sit in between Lore and Crispian since, despite them being friends, would always rabble about something.

That morning, two things happened.

"I have reports that there is a traitor among us," said Jorge as if it was a minor subject that was of no importance.

Nothing would prepare the others for such sudden news. No one made a sound, but all had faces of shock that were expressed in different ways with different features and in different degrees of distress.

But Jorge just moved on. He rambled on about the death of the war minister and the emperor's personal magician. He also said mildly about a plan to start bringing the outbursts of rebellion to a higher degree of crime.

As news were heard and spoken, the first information was stuck in everyone's mind. A traitor? It could have been anyone's guess for who it was. Strange Nick? Frightening Ali? Or even distant Celia? No one was a close candidate for a turncoat.

After the many reports were sent and received, Alex noticed that an hour had passed already and that the usual schedule had not started. But like a good apprentice, Alex was patient and waited.

But Alex's serene didn't have to wait. He would discover that he wasn't an apprentice any more.

Jorge soon ran out of reports, and thus began a new topic.

"As Alex here seem to note, we have not started mediating, for there is something more important. First off, we have come together early, because there is something we need to cover that entirely change today's plans. It is about out novices."

Lore and Crispian were a bit nervous about this, but Alex stayed calm like he should. Crispian was the jumpy one and Lore had something that had her on alert everywhere. She once caught an imp following her, and she crushed it with a book in her bag.

"You see, an apprentice's training takes a month to fully complete it. But this bunch is extremely talented. I think it's time to test them," said Jorge, mostly to the other veneficus immortalis. They nodded and showed signs of agreement. Lore and Crispian's expression changed dramatically from alertness, to serenity and happiness. Alex's expression was still stony, but inside, he was crowing with extreme content.

As the next hour unfolded, plans were laid out. The test would be a hard one, for there was only time to have one test, and it had to be successful. Alex, Lore and Crispian would rob a magician's house, a magician of high level and controls quite a few demons easily. They would have three hours to observe the area where the house was and plan a way into the magician's house, and out of there with a certain amount of goods and deal a lot of damage, and try not to alert anything.

"So, which house do we rob?" asked Alex.

---

"That house?" said Alex with a bit of disbelief.

"Yup, that's what Jorge gave us," said Crispian, with awe in his voice.

It was the great mansion that Alex had stayed in three weeks ago. Well, in the yard of it. High-level djinn guarded the front and back yard. The other demons in the neighboring houses also looked out for each other, just to make thieves work harder only to get caught. Nexuses and Hexes lined the grounds and even had a few human sentries.

"Great, how do we get into that?" asked Lore in disbelief.

All three stood a few feet away from the yard door, trying to observe the house without causing too much attention to themselves. They stood there for a bit longer, until Alex moved out of the burning sun.

"Lets get out of the crowd to my house,"

Lore and Crispian looked at each other (which was one of the few times they did that without arguing) with a blank expression. Alex had already several times to try to get Lore and Crispian to his house. But all times they rejected each time with as much courtesy. Now, they couldn't reject it.

So they walked past several slaves who were delivering things for their lazy masters, to the crossroads. All three took one route for the first time.

After five minutes of walking, they came to his court area. The shop in front was as busy as ever. People were coming in and out of the door faster then water poured in a glass and dumped out. Seeing this, Alex and his friends took the back door.

Alex introduced Lore and Crispian to his parents, and after a few greetings, mother and father ran off to keep up with the demands. Alex had a sudden urge to help his family, as he had neglected that duty for two weeks. But he had something more important to do.

As all three walked up the sturdy stairs, Crispian and Lore looked around the house like the way they admired the magician's house; they were wide eyed and examined the shinny floors, the open windows letting in fresh air, and how the only chaos was down in the busy shop. It was rather quiet and comfortable up on the second level.

"You're lucky,"

"Am I?"

Both Crispian and Lore nodded.

"How?" asked Alex with extreme confusion.

They were in the same room Alex had been in when Jorge turned into his real person. The room was much warmer then that time and was a bit dustier. The hearth had ashes smoked everywhere, on the brinks, on the wood remains and some flew onto the floor.

They laid out a large piece of parchment. On it were: the magician's address, what were to be stolen, the degree of damage and the advised time to work things out. Other then that, everything else had to be done through hard work.

"Where in the world do we start?"

Where did they start…Alex didn't know the answer. The other two seemed to think Alex was sort of the head leader. He knew where to begin, where to end, how to do those and what were the cautions. It made Alex feel in place. Though, the massive dependence was a bit frightening.

Indeed, both Crispian and Lore stared at him in question. Alex felt odd with their pupils imprinting into him. But he relaxed seeing they weren't arguing.

Alex tried thinking, but found he was too dehydrated to think of what to do.

"I'll get us some light ale, you try to think of a plan we can execute."

Alex ran down the stairs, though as quiet as a mouse, thanks to his training. He was about to go into the kitchen, when he heard his parent's voice. Their tone was the same to any other person outside of his family, but those who have been with the Dunns for more then five years will know the certain tone. It meant that no one was suppose to know what was said and was serious. So, Alex listened in.

"—So now that he has friends, Alex shouldn't need to be with Jorge. Now he can help us—"

"But that's not the problem is it?" interrupted Alex's father.

"No. I think something is going on."

"What makes you think that?"

"Well…first, Alex comes home later then his therapy should be and on some days he doesn't come out of his room. Now, he brings home two strangers who are complete strangers. I think we should keep him from Jorge."

Alex's two parents had a moment of silence. It seemed Eloy managed the business up front with the twins helping as much as possible. Agrippa was taking her nap on a padded bench by the open window.

"You're right…something is on and about. I know a magician who can tail Alex. He has a lot of influence in the government,"

But Alex's mother was skeptical.

"But he's a magician. How can we trust him?"

Alex winced as he could almost hear his father smiling. "We will lie and say Alex is a minor suspect in the recent incidents."

But Vibia just couldn't stand that thought.

"No, no, no. We can't do that."

"But we must."

A few minutes passed in absolute silence. Then Vibia said, "Okay. But I need to—"

Alex's mother's next words were drowned out by the sudden shouts in the front. Alex could hear his parents rushing to the shop counter.

After he recovered from his shock, Alex went into the kitchen; absentmindedly got two small drinking bowls, poured out ale and then stopped in front of the stairs. He tried to shake out, "They betrayed me" in his head. But that was the only thought now. "They used me so they could stay alive in their stupid lives. Well they'll die soon, so why was the point of sacrificing their insane son?"

With a sob, Alex ran up the stairs, almost tripping over a couple of steps into the room.

After Alex regained his composure, he entered the room with the tray of bowls. What he saw didn't surprise him; Lore and Crispian arguing.

Usually, Alex would be entertained to see their pointless bickering. He would easily see weak points to end the conversation, but would watch on with amusement. But now he was in no mood for laughs. He slammed the tray onto the table and sat in his seat. Lore and Crispian immediately quitted their conversation.

After Alex had raised his head, he said softly, "So that's why you hate your parents,"

Lore and Crispian couldn't call where they lived home. Lore lived in a trashed house with an estranged mother and a neglecting father. They couldn't scrape that much money, so Lore had to do odd jobs and steal from stores, which was how she managed to look like a well being lady. But the house couldn't withstand powerful storms or heat waves or cold waves. Because of this, she often was sick or had to stay over at a friend's house. Her parents didn't care if she died because: one, they wouldn't notice a dead body because they took the rest of their time working, eating, arguing or sleeping. The other reason: Lore's family used to be a middle class family, not well known, but respected. Lore had many brothers and sisters, each one with a special talent that could earn them a living. But a few months after Lore had been born, a disease wiped out the family business, and all the children, except for Lore. Because of that, her parents thought she was a bad omen.

Crispian was in a high-class family. He was an only child and had everything ready for him in his future. He was well educated by a personal tutor, which was partially why Crispian could memorize and learn so much. But one day, something happened which was similar to Alex's incident. Crispian was thirteen and he was to be introduced to the Roman council. Crispian's father was proud of his intelligent son, despite Crispian being a bit thin.

So there they were, exactly where Bartimaeus and Nero would be three years later. His father had been explaining the many things Crispian could do, when suddenly; Crispian's eye focus became loose. He managed to balance, but his view now consisted of seven windows. As he looked around, several strange beings took the place of tall big men. Antlers and many bug arms flew all over the place, making Crispian shudder and give a yelp of panic. His father paused suddenly.

"Are you okay son?"

"Those…things…"

"What things?"

"The…the things with the eyes and the…oh my…"

One of the demons came over with a loud air. It had over thousands of tentacles, and they flew all over Crispian.

He screamed and kicked at it. The demon was a bit taken aback at this defense, but it grabbed Crispian's leg, then it's tentacle shot back as Crispian's resilience burned him; it was extremely high, the resilience. Then Crispian fainted…

Crispian woke up in his bed, in a silk gown. He groaned a bit, and then realized he was at home. Then he recalled with shock what happened at the council table. The only thing in his head: my life is ruined… my life is ruined…

Then he heard voices in the neighboring room. He quietly went to the door and listened in.

"…I punished Faquarl for his greediness, but this is for sure; your son cannot get a position in the council after this. They will not accept someone who can't ignore a demon's true form. But what I don't get is how the boy saw Faquarl's true form. It was on the seventh plane…"

Crispian had ignored the last sentence. His father was disgraced, and so he would be pushed aside as a useless pawn.

At this, Crispian did indeed get ignored and because, he isolated himself into the library and became conscious about secrets even the emperor had not heard rumors about. Until three years later, he only read and read, since the only thing now Crispian could do was to be a scholar. And his mother didn't help; she was powerless compared to her husband…

---

The room was silent again. Crispian was shaking quietly and sipping from his bowl of ale. A crash sounded downstairs, and the door to the communications room creaked. Alex got up and put some logs to the blackened heath. Then he created a fire in the hearth with an Inferno.

"So that's why you don't care if your parents die huh?"

Lore and Crispian nodded sadly.

"And now I'm where you guys are at too,"

And Alex told what he heard downstairs. After the end of his narrative, Lore and Crispian stared blandly at him.

"Welcome, to our world," said Lore.

---

Despite the shake up, Alex managed to come up a plan they could use. First, they needed to know the entire blueprint of the house and the daily patrols. To find the blueprints, they would have to do a complicated spell that had the castor's eyes to see through walls and transfer it to a sheet a parchment. After all three practiced on a box filled with all sorts of stuff, to Lore's fury, only Crispian could successfully do the spell.

They set up a large bread stall in the lazy afternoon. In order to get more goods or money, Alex used that excuse to make a stand and get the plans. Alex and Crispian would make the bread in the small fire pit in the back of the small stall with Lore ("If one of us men sold it, they would be suspicious," said Crispian, only to get a fist in the cheek. "I meant it as a compliment!"). Crispian would look like he was kneading the dough ("You need to actually make it since it's going to be quite a time to transfer it" explained Alex) but would mostly be copying the plans down.

Asthey set up the large stand, Crispian had already started to do the spell. The yard was already down by the time they were burning and the customers started to arrive. Most were slaves, since the stand was in a magician neighborhood and human slaves did most of rich people's work. Lore called out in a high, attractive voice that even had some of the magicians come out. Soon, Alex was so occupied with making more and more bread that he almost didn't notice a certain djinni coming to haggle the price of five loaves of bread.

Alex was putting uncooked bread into the five pit, and calling Crispian over. Then he noticed a demon. Alex dived onto the ground.

"What is wrong with you?"

"Shush! That demon is from a powerful magician and he has seen me before."

"How?"

"Don't let him see me!"

That demon was now talking to Lore rather nicely. Lore seemed to be a bit shaken that a demon was buying from her, but she barley showed it, only releasing it by tapping her foot.

Now Lore was taking his money, gave the bread, and he walked off at a slow pace.

"Uh, you saw that demon before, where?"

Alex got up, brushed himself and told his midnight demon run in four weeks ago.

The customer line had lessened since many magicians had cooks for them. The smell of freshly cooked bread had risen to the rich but non-magical area, and many people were walking over to the stall.

Lore was a bit entertained and amazed by the incident, but Crispian just shook his head.

"Why would you go walking at midnight into this neighborhood. I mean, look at that afrit!" Crispian gestured to a massive afrit walking through a yard at the end of the road.

"I felt trapped in that house, so I had to get out somehow."

"Hey, we got customers," said Lore, who had now been making some dough and had left the incident alone.

"And you have to copy the house, eh,"

Crispian set down to do that, covering his purpose up by attending to the fire with caution. He would look at the house with concentration, then stared at his large cut of parchment. A bunch of rooms would come up in black ink with traps, objects and demons.

"About twenty more minutes then it'll all be down,"

At this, Alex flushed in happiness. Then he saw his unfinished dough. He considered the large about of loaves cooking at the fire, then walked over to where Lore sat idle, waiting for the upcoming crowd.

The warm wind blew Lore's black hair into her face. She ignored the crazy strands, as she saw a demon fly above the stall. It then flew into a home and most likely to its master. Then she started to count the amount of coins they achieved.

"You know, you can keep some,"

Lore looked up in revelation. She shook her head in disagreement.

"For what's going to happen to you, you're going to need as much," she smiled

Alex had no idea what she meant even when the desperate crowd was upon them. Lore didn't need to speak to get their attention; the aromas did that for her. Lore was trying to get the coins and hand the bread as fast as possible. Alex was rapidly piling loaves into a basket and handed a couple to Lore. Crispian was disregarding this huge rush and was regarding the house and his parchment. It was nearly complete.

By the time the mob had been satisfied and gone home, the front counter was a mess. A basket was on the brick road ahead of the stall. The bread that had not been bought now was in a disastrous mess. The extra parchment Crispian had brought now flew idle about the stall. The street was now deserted.

Just as all three carefully examined the parchment with the detailed plans of the house, the fire got a little out of control from the sudden blows of wind by lighting the stall on fire. Seeing this, Alex went to put it out. Lore had gone up front to get the loaves of bread that they were going to eat for a light snack, when a boy came a walking over to the stand. He seemed carefree, and stood out, as the sun was behind him.

Alex's eyes bulged when the boy came to the stall, and now the fire was out, he dived to one side, knocking Crispian in the process."

"Hey!"

"Don't make me visible. You know that boy I said that night three weeks ago? Well, that's him, so don't let him see me,"

"Him? He's no boy. He's a grown man, older then all three of us,"

"Yeah, yeah, when he was my friend, he was shorter then he should be, so we always called him boy."

"But what about Lore? You said he attracted women like bees to nectar?"

"Oh…you better help here then,"

"Why? She can defend against his magic,"

"Not his 'charms',"

When Lore first saw the man, she scolded. They did not need another customer.

"Sorry, we've run out of bread,"

"Well here's one," said he, as the man picked up the loaf and examined it,"

"How much?"

The man's voice was calm and smooth. He was gentle, but something about him alarmed her. Yet she couldn't it was not for sale.

"A gold piece,"

She immediately regretted saying this, yet the rich man didn't seem to care.

"I should think that is cheap; did you make it? Aye, it's worth more then that…"

Despite the lame come on, Lore couldn't help but flush.

Where was Alex? Or Crispian? Alex was probably still putting out the fire, and Crispian most likely looking on with amusement.

"You want to see a trick? Watch"

The man suddenly raised a hand, and shot up lights of brightness. Despite it being a spell Lore knew, the strange, beautiful colours awed her.

"You want to see more?"

Lore suddenly had the view of two blue pupils, which transfixed her.

"Would you like to see more?" asked the man carefully. Lore could not answer, though the word, "yes" almost came off her tongue.

Alex and Crispian was watching the entire conversation go on. The fireworks did make Alex look on for a bit of time, but Crispian muttered something about a lame spell.

"Go help her!"

"Why? She's got it good. Besides, this is fun…"

Crispian got a sharp pain in his gut.

"You idiot. This…"

"Okay, okay…"

Lore stared into the eyes without a hint of embarrassment. She would have kept looking, and maybe accept his invitation, until a hand grabbed her.

"Hey there, sorry, we're closed,"

Lore looked to her right, and saw a tall man with a military crop hairstyle. Not too short, but at his ears His eyes were dark brown and had no noticeable features like scars or birthmarks. The stranger was well built.

"Where did you come from, I never saw you?" said the magician with apparent confusion.

"That does not matter,"

Lore looked on with wide eyes. She recognized the voice; it was Crispian. She looked at his arm around her with disgust. Lore turned her head to see Alex seeing the view with bit laughter in his eyes, but seriousness on his features. He winked at her, telling her through that to just go along.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Lore's brother. But you know what annoys me the most? When my sister lets people walk all over her, whether she sees they are or not. Especially, if it's people who tempt her " Crispian put an emphasis on "tempt". He slightly pulsed his muscles.

The magician boy looked ready to call up a demon, but he left it. He smiled at Lore and walked back to his house rather quickly. The door slammed shut with an echo sounding repeatedly.

Crispian's spell now resolved and was now at his thin self. He flashed a grin at Lore, who pulled his arm off her, and turned her back.

---

With the stall packed up, the currency given to Alex's parents, they now had everything ready with four hours to get into the house. Each carried a small fur poach. In everyone's poach had a small vial of Detonation liquid, which no longer existed to modern days. There was some Illusion sparkles, a small silver sword and a bunch of vials of Greek fire. Alex's poach also had the plans. Each apprentice had their pendant around their neck; had on a robe good for running, and hard skin sandals.

They arrived approximately when sunset was close. Lore pointed out a rare flaw in the human patrol, and they snuck through it into the cellar. It was cool, as it was underground, and was in rather good condition as no cobwebs or creepy crawlies. Crispian started by smashing the wine bottles.

"Don't do that, they'll hear!"

"We're underground. Need I say more?"

Ever since Crispian's "drastic move", both Lore and Crispian were irritated at each other's reaction. Crispian had expected some kind of gratification and Lore wanted a full apology. And typically, Alex could do nothing but stand by and watch.

Crispian continued to smash wine bottles, while Alex put a vial of Detonation controlled by a simple word command on the master pole. Lore dumped the food preserved in barrels and put a sick looking liquid in a few apple bins.

They slowly walked up the cellar stairs, a silver blade at the ready. After ascending the steps they saw no demon on the landing or on next set of steps. But as they opened the cellar door, a foliot came flying past the door.

After this close call, the three consulted the map. When they more carefully navigated their way to the attic (along the way they trashed dozens of artifacts and other goods and rares, plus accidentally squishing an imp lying on the floor for no apparent reason).

Subsequent to placing the last Detonation glass on the master block in the attic, they were to rob the safe's magic items, then climb out of the magician's study window.

As a demon walked out of view, Alex was about to knock down the door, when he heard a voice apparently talking through a crystal.

"…Got the demons ready? Good, good, good. I shall send Nero and Bartimaeus with the group. They will be essential to the force; Nero is much more powerful then a distinctive djinni and Bartimaeus is a tricky fellow…sorry sir, I just thought I heard someone outside…"

Alex turned to see Lore and Crispian squabbling **again**. Connecting what he heard inside and their talking, he banged their head against the wall, and put his index finger to his lips.

But it was too late; the magician walked out of his study (Crispian had no idea that he the magician would still be inside; the mage's schedule was not followed today) and saw Alex, Crispian and Lore, huddled in the next corridor to the left of the study. Alex gave the magician a sly smile, and then punched him good.

They ran off in the direction of the hallway window. But since the magician used to be in a legion was able to respond. While clutching his face, sounded the alarm. A strange noise was heard, and was instantly reveled to be the alarm.

A djinni popped through the window Alex was aiming for. Slamming his feet on the floor to steady himself, he thrust his pendant forward. The demon flinched wildly, and fell two stories to the stone walkway that led to a garden.

Lore took out some Greek fire, and threw it at a bunch of foliots coming to intercept them.

"How does he control seven foliots, three djinn and an imp?"

"Who cares, lets get out of here before the human guards hear us!"

As the foliots got scorched and the flames started to spread, the same demon that went to buy Lore's bread appeared in the other end of the hall.

They stared at each other, and then Alex dived to the left hall, bringing down Crispian and Lore with him. The Spasm hit the wall where Alex had been and left a gray stain.

Scrambling to get up, Alex turned and dealt an Inferno. It just missed the djinni.

Bartimaeus had enough of this boy. He had seen him three weeks ago, five hours ago, and now. Three times and failed assassination. The master would not be satisfied. The Essence Rack was heavy on his mind.

So, he tried to contain the boy's damage with more zeal.

But Alex was more committed then Bartimaeus in goals and success. But only by a little.

Basically dragging Lore and Crispian, he ran down a set of stairs with the djinni hard on his heels throwing heavy objects, only to smack into another djinni, who (unknown to Alex) was called Nero.

He, Nero, with a yell, slammed onto the wall landing as a result of the much silver on the veneficus immortalizes body, giving Alex a path to heave Lore and Crispian with him, who were knocked out (Lore from two boys lying on top of her with the top one jumping on the pile) and bleeding from the head (Crispian from a vase to the skull). But fortunately, after the stairs were behind and all three were on the ground floor, Crispian now helped lug Lore out the door.

Barley getting out the door, Nero jumped out with the three teens, only to hit a step right on the noggin. Bartimaeus gracefully leaped over him, and almost caught Alex, who had a dickey leg from the sudden running, if he hadn't taken a risk.

The last time Alex tried to do a Spasm, the run down house, which was now veneficus headquarters, almost malformed. But Alex successfully dealt a Spasm, and the gray-blue ball hit the djinni Bartimaeus right on his chest. This gave time for Alex to give a command, and the explosives planted in crucial poles within the house exploded. The roof caved right in with smoke rising. The cellar just barley held, since the Detonation set there was weak. But windows crashed, and the djinni that fell two stories crashed out a wall with its master in its arms, as it was to follow its charge; protect the magician.

Alex and Crispian looked at each other, then at Lore. With a groan, both lifted their female companion by the armpits, and left Nero (unconscious), the collapsed house, Bartimaeus lying prone and the magician still recovering from the shock.

---

All three only just escaped, as the human guards left as they saw explosions inside the house. Alex and Crispian with their sleeping friend hid in an abandoned backyard, as demons might have been sent out to find them. After Lore woke up, and explained everything, they lay there with the bulging bag of magical weapons found elsewhere. Even without the safe's contents, the bag was to standards.

Knowing this, all three realized they would now be official veneficus immortalis. But they did not rejoice immediately. One, they were too exhausted to show signs of relief, if not smiles on their face. Two, imps flew past them constantly.

Evening had settled in, and they had to report soon. With much energy, all three walked painfully to the rundown house, where lights were lit with much degree. They had got past the long corridor, when they saw everyone waiting with zeal. Jorge was staring out the small window, Ali was tapping is fingers on the table; the twins kept walking akimbo to each other. Nick was laying his head on the table in stress, and Sorty was sitting with a look of impatience.

All looked up as one to see a bruised up Lore, a bloodied Crispian, and a tired Alex, complete with half ripped poaches, a chipped tooth in Crispian's case, and a plump ripped sac. Which caught most of the attention, not the injuries.

---

Alex, his injuries now healed completely, courtesy of Ali, waved goodbye to Crispian and Lore, and continued his way down the road. The sun had long set, and the stars shone brightly. To keep himself occupied, he named the constellations and the most prominent stars.

The past hour had been spent examining the magical objects, labeling them, and putting them into a huge wooden crate with many other weapons neatly pilled. These were not to be used by them, but by the commoners. Each week, a crate of these was sent to commoners with resilience and other powers.

In this hour, their immortalis part was added.

Yes, they had become veneficus immortalis! The spell was applied with good grace, and had well after affects. All three had much more energy, and looked much better. Lore's tired eyes suddenly snapped wider and her pupils showed with much more intensity. Alex was still rather lean, but yet, he looked much more broader and his black hair shone in the darkness. Really, a lot of other things were improved, but they were minor. This was because the spell's effect took a while to show.

"But you will become everlasting to time, only when your family dies. I'm sorry to say that. But there are those who do not care about their family, and so proceed to knock them off. But the spell recognizes a murder by the spell receiver's hands, and when it does, the spell fades away, and leaves you with barley any energy to live. So, live to the fullest with your family,"

Both Lore and Crispian had no intention of doing that. Alex knew that soon, he would be in their situation.

With this, Alex had to repair the connection with his family. But that would be hard. What he was doing right now was steadily snapping him and his relatives apart. He would come home, and his parents would be waiting impatiently, and an argument would rage about his curfew evasion.

Did Jorge have to have this? Ali? Sorty? Nick? The twins? Celia? Thought Alex with a horrible gut feeling in the depths of his bowels.

The stars created a creative puzzle in the black sky. The brightest one, Sirius, burned the most evident among the countless number of stars. Alex stopped in his tracks, and sighed. Far away, two demons had just been summoned by their master, and were now walking with a crowd of other djinn. They looked at the star Sirius in hope. Sirius would always shine for those who looked.

_Next week:_

_History of the veneficus immortalis, and other information requested._

_Nero's change of thought about his master_

_The end of "Fall of Rome" arc_

_Alex, Lore and Crispian's continued training and participation in rebellion_

_And a bunch of other things that will make the chapter into three parts_

_New: Next chapter will have a except of the next, next chapter_


	8. Fall of Rome Part 4

Another Point of View

**Bartimaeus**

Rome was having odd weather. In the summer, it first began with a chill and lasted for almost the whole month. Then for two days, the days were suddenly extremely hot that an egg could have had a good change of being cooked, though to Romans that would be a waste of a barter item. Now clouds decided to drop into the once greatest city in the world.

The past four days were spent, doing our punishment for the random vanish of the Brothers, followed by continuous patrol in the rain around the markets. Yes, maybe this did match up with all the failures Nero and I did: one, the break in and escape of a middle class adolescent boy. Then he appeared again with two of his friends at my master's house, and blew the mansion up, in the process killing all the lesser servants (a messenger imp and a bunch of foliots) and severally wounding a low level djinni in the process. 1

Two: the barbarian matter. The countless mobs of them of were still ravaging the countryside, even after four afrits and forty djinn attempted to stop them.

The only good thing we did was rescue the cube and most of that went to Nero. That was a disgrace to me; Bartimaeus of Uruk does not bow down to lesser djinni!

I mean, I did follow the brothers and have them put in jail. Not that bars could hold such dominant spirits.

Anyway, after the disappearance of the Brothers, Nero and I with foliots started to rebuild our master's house, exactly the way it was before 2. Meh, that's not hard when you've built the Parthenon, one of the greatest things humans could solely design. 3

Now that construction was over, the rain started to pour. And so, our patrol started.

A flash of lightning ran across the sky; followed a second later by thunder. It shook the shack I was standing in, with Nero and four other djinn. Massive puddles that looked like miniature lakes formed quickly. Merchants soon packed up to protect their precious goods. Commoners rushed back into their homes, soaked to the bone with rain. Humid air caused quite a few of the women's hair to go frizzy. The last of the messenger imps flew pitifully back into their master's homes. Not even djinni eyes could see the cloud's outline, as they were so tightly packed together.

"Raining again," announced one of the djinni.

"Joy," I said sarcastically. Well at least the fish were happy.

We continued to stare at the storm meaningfully, and then took off. Two clever djinn took the guise of frogs and hopped along, looking for any commoners looking very suspicious. Two idiots of djinn turned into birds and flew off to observe the grounds from above. They were going to be very wet. Nero and I just stayed in our usual forms (Roman soldier and Ptolemy respectively) and we all went in a random direction.

Commoners desperate to finish a few things ran off when Nero and I walked into sight. Now the streets were completely deserted. Not even Roman guards walked about. This area just had us six djinn.

Or so we thought.

One of the bird djinni flew above us, and then drove upward until it was a mere speck in the gray sky. With the rain and the clouds, the view was a rather serene one.

Except that lightning and thunder had to shatter it.

After twelve minutes of walking about the Forum, one of the frogs hopped toward us.

"You seen Bobit?" The frog was talking about the other frog djinni.

Neither Nero nor I gave any signs of seeing him.

The frog some how narrowed its eyes in suspicion. While Nero was occupied with this feat, I saw an afrit walk toward us.

The frog croaked in fear and Nero outstretched his hands. I rolled my eyes. It was a male afrit, by the name of Constaine. He liked to take the form of angel or canonized statues. Odd how his true form and his favourite form looked completely different. Completely. And on a side note, he participated in the force to stop the barbarians.

I eased the frog and Nero, and then turned to face the male angel 4.

"I've been sent by the emperor to bring you and your master to the palace."

I glanced at the frog and Roman djinni. They were a bit confused but knew he meant all six of us; we all had the same master.

"Erm…why?"

"I don't know, I do not have such knowledge,"

"So…do we go to our master?"

"Yes, we all go,"

"Yes, you said that already,"

Constaine didn't really have much patience, as most afrits don't. Steam flared from his nose and he tapped his foot on the wet stone road.

"Lets go get the others."

The bird djinn were not that hard to find. But Bobit was nowhere in sight. So we started calling for him. And of course, that didn't work, as it was Constaine's harebrained plan, so we had to search every nook and cranny.

"He could be dead…" one of the birds put in while hovering.

We didn't get that to stop us. Well it didn't make the afrit pause.

After almost an hour of keeping eyes sharp for Bobit, there was only one place left where the djinni could be.

In the ghetto.

Most of the rebels were located here, lurking and planning ways to take down the magician government. Their activities mainly were attacks on important places and peoples. But they mostly plan, not implement those plans. One thing that baffled the magician officials is how they managed to get so many weapons. They barley stole anything, but every attack had many weapons involved. It was suspected that someone was supplying them, but they never found out whom.

"Why don't we just ditch him and go to the emperor now? This meeting couldn't be this important."

Constaine looked at me blandly, which is hard to tell, as most angel faces are solemn. "I have charges—"

"Don't we all?" I said bluntly. Afrits are way too full of themselves.

The alley was at least dry from all the rain, as some wood planks were laid over top, probably for quick travel over the roofs. It seemed Constaine was keeping mental notes of this, as he was observing very carefully. I knew that he wasn't trying to be a goody two shoe; he just wanted a bunch of info slammed into his master so he could go home. Besides, if he was being one of those types, I wouldn't have mentioned it; he's one: an afrit, two: a pretty darn potent one too.

After rounding a corner, the roof vanished into a wreaked rubble square. Well it was a small one, only ten by ten. Rain poured down more heaver then it was when it was ten minutes before. For some abnormal reason, this was a dead end.

"Don't even think about blasting your way out," said the frog to the afrit.

"Wasn't going to."

"Oh, just thought that afrits just love to do that,"

"How come you're so rude suddenly?"

"I'm kinda in a bad mood,"

"That's no news from a frog…"

I didn't like this. We were too exposed, too weak to be here, even with the afrit.

"Guys, get back into the alley, we're vulnerable,"

"Hey! I don't take orders from a djinni!"

I ignored this and was about to address the bird djinn when I was bemused; they were nowhere in sight.

"You guys seen the birds?"

Nero, the frog and Constaine also just realized they were gone.

"What the…" Nero was about to say something else when a Detonation hit him. A marid stood on the rooftop, the same one who disappeared two days ago!

Nero flew into a brick wall. He easily got up, despite being hit by a marid, but the whole wall fell, and when the dust cleared, dozens of djinn were battle ready, weapons engaged and with magical shields up.

Then the marid dived straight at us, arms out stretched, Inferno flames dancing along its black fingers…

Only to fall to the ground in pain after a rather powerful Detonation hit him was sent by Constaine. That was the signal for the rest of us djinn to run.

With the leaping frog croaking behind Nero and I, we stopped a short time into the alley, not for a breather, but for Constaine to catch up. An afrit in battle was a handy thing.

But Constaine didn't fly into view in his odd angel form. Only the pacing rain sounded at the roofs above.

But where were the other djinn enemy?

"Is Constaine dead?" inquired the frog.

"Don't know," Nero replied rather shortly.

They continued their conversation, but I paid no heed. At first I was more interested in being alert, then (as usual) I noticed something different: the frog's voice. I know that a spirit doesn't change his voice without casting a spell. It's very hard to intimidate another's voice, particularly when in frog form.

On the planes, the seven showed much difference to the frog before. It was a different frog!

So I did what I needed to and walked behind Nero and the new enemy. I waited until the frog stopped talking. Then I pounced.

It had been expecting the attack and so had evaded my attack. I then hit the brick wall. Because of my full power in that attack, I was dazed.

The frog sent Nero back flipping past a corner of the alley. After a crash and groans and moans, it appeared Nero hit Constaine, who had finally decided to come.

The frog transformed into a bulky wolf on two legs. It flashed its yellow, grimy but sharp gnashes.

"You're that djinni…the brothers…" I mumbled with a hint of possible unconsciousness.

"Yes. That other frog was rather worried about his friend to see me swallow him."

"How…how did you disappear like that the other day,"

Once again, the werewolf grinned, which was disgusting, considering that it had stepped closer, probably to eat me like he did with the frog. Ug, frogs taste disgusting. But the essence really makes most of the flavor 5.

"Naturally, I wouldn't tell you."

I was almost blanking out now, nearly about to fall victim to a djinni that eats like Jabor. Definitely not a good way out.

So, I had some tricks up my metaphorical sleeve.

A Detonation burst out of my bare foot, which did look weird, but it worked. The werewolf didn't go too far, as its Shield held quite sturdily. But that gave me a chance to rapidly transform into a bird, and flap my way back to where Nero and Constaine lay.

As I saw them, I turned my back on them, and turned back into Ptolemy. Nero seemed to explain everything to the afrit. Now Constaine was saying something.

"You see, the djinn were an illusion, so we—"

"We still needed to run. That was a marid," I uttered.

"Where is he anyway?"

Leave it to Nero to bring up such gloomy news.

The werewolf stepped forward from the shadows, in a battle stance; legs akimbo and hands stretched and flexed. Then the marid landed in front of the mystical beast and was a huge giant human with furs tied around its waist with leather straps. If that fell from the heavy rain still falling, I would not be looking with any attention. Though that's what might kill me.

"Lets just ditch this. Don, lets go. Let Raphael and Michelangelo deal this."

The said afrits appeared from the shadows, again like their disappearance days ago. That was still heavy on my mind.

Speaking of which, Don and the marid disappeared using the same technique as days ago.

Testing this, I threw a Detonation at where Don disappeared. Nothing happened. Tsk. Except that the entire wall fell over, distracting the afrits.

Nero and Constaine were prepared for the upcoming battle. I was too. It would be a long and fierce one.

Then a dozen djinn flew into the alley with a certain flying djinni in the lead. It was the same frog we had searched for all along. This frustrated me; we had come here, almost got killed, only to have the lost find the finders.

They chased the afrits away, and then turned around a corner, then went out of noticeable sight.

Nero, Constaine, the frog and I stood in the pouring precipitation.

I stared at the afrit in expectation. He seemed confused.

"Well! Lets go! We didn't come here for a nice walk. Led us to the emperor!"

Mind, I didn't mention the boy earlier because this such of thing wasn't new with Rome as their golden time had passed and second, the barbarian thing kind of pushed everything off several of my conscious mind; it's not that easy when you mindless humans are stabbing at anything with weird armor

I've done harder things, like the Great Wonders of the World. A magician mansion wasn't that hard if you had a good memory and knew the style.

We djinn thought up most of the great wonders. Our lazy masters just sent us to do all the hardships. But even with the design fault by the marid Atlas, it wasn't too bad.

What Constaine thought what a male angel looked like was very…creative?

Yeah, essence is what makes us take almost all things. So the form you're in only barley makes a flavor, salty, sour, or both…sorry if I'm making you puke all over your coffee table.

Alex Two days before the Jail Incident 

Alex fell upon his bed smiling. The festival was tomorrow. His parents had let him go with Crispian and Lore. The shows and sights would be a time to never forget, provided that neither of his friends quarrels during the festival.

But there were some serious points. One thing Jorge told Alex and his classmates was to look for any suspicious things. Because of the barbarians expected visit to Rome was approaching, even demons and magicians were expected to gatecrash the festival.

And his old friends. Alex had high and middle-class friends, but the high ones weren't allowed to come to the fun event, mostly to keep the commoners happy. Still, his middle society friends would be there, though the most they do is simply ignore him with rudeness at some degree.

But that turncoat-magician-boy that messed with Lore would be there. He was to make a speech and the beginning and closing of the gathering. Hopefully, he could avoid the boy altogether, not be sighted, and leave before the ending speech. Or he could be late for the opening talk.

Meanwhile, in Alex's studies, Jorge had told him that they would soon be summoning minor demons. Alex was completely ready, and perhaps Lore too. But Crispain, despite his brains, he was in no shape (i.e. shape of mind) to even summon the tiniest mite. His mistakes were most entertaining, such as tripping and pouring all the incense in a large pot onto Lore. Well Lore smelt of it for a couple of days quite prominently, and Crispain did get pushed around, but Nick would comment of this forever. Sorty just shook his head in disappointment of his pupil, Crispain, and Celia was proud of her pupil of roughing her rival's (Sorty) pupil. So truly, no harm done. But that would change once Crispain summoned something with that horrible coordination.

After the raid on the magician's house, it was learned that it had been rebuilt and that the victim magician, was on the mass lookout for the three children. But the veneficus immortalizes weren't too worried about this. The destruction of the nearest outpost was of most frightening; the barbarian invasion was nearing. And the rebellion wasn't ready yet. The only way the rebels could overthrow the corrupt government was to coincide it with the mass attack. Despite their weakness, the government could easily deal with one big threat. But with two mass attacks, their time would be over.

So Ali, the twins and Nick started riling the commoners even more. The shipments to the ghetto were more frequent. The veneficuses were still in the rundown hideout past midnight, planning. It was predicted that the barbarians would come knocking at about fall time, September, October, something like that. But that was soon.

As a result, Alex's lessons were halted slightly.

So, his skills were still rather limited. And thus, he couldn't "graduate" yet. Once he did, he had to wait until he grew up, and then go to veneficus main post, and do some tests, and then find a duty. Each person has a special thing to do in the cycle.

Other then pretty much that info, Alex didn't know a lot about the veneficus. His skills **were** up to date, but yet he didn't even know about what he was involuntarily signing up for.

This frightened Alex a bit…

A quiet knock on the door interrupted Alex's thoughts. Alex got up from his cot, and opened the door. It was his mother, a bit flushed, but with good nature.

"Your friend is here to see you." Then Vibia walked down the steps of the stairs.

Alex raced after her, wondering if it was Crispian or Lore, or both. He rushed into the front shop, which was empty of customers (the day was finished, the sun set) and there was Angelina, the girl at the market who was the only one to talk to him without insults and empty threats.

"Oh…hi,"

"Hello Alex."

"What are you doing here?" Alex sounded a bit rushed, as he had just sprinted down his stairs.

"Just came to drop by,"

All was quiet now. The harsh winds pounded the villa. The twins started to laugh in union, quite manically, somewhere in the dining room. Alex's shadow from the moonlight had become quite big, and covered Angelina's face.

"And I wanted, to see how you were." She was very hesitant.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yes, yes, everything…"

"Well I'm all right."

Again, an uncomfortable silence settled in. Great talk was heard behind in the dining room. It unnerved Alex, how much of a difference there was here and over there.

"So you'll be at the festival?"

"Definitely."

"Okay. Bye."

Alex waved as she exited the door. He was still there as he pondered her visit. Something wasn't right. It was too random.

Carefully making sure that he was silent to his family, Alex left his home, and trailed Angelina.

She was at the crossroads by the time Alex swiftly caught up to her. She went down the path to the magician neighborhood.

It seemed she too was dabbing in magic business. And so, as Alex predicted, she went into the boy's home.

Grinding his teeth, he too slipped in.

The house was brightly lit, and was laden heavy with decorations. Exotic glass vases lined about the tables and near window stills. The kitchen (which Alex was in) was dark and very large, inferring that this high-class family had more then the usual number of kids from lower classes (probably…three). Out into the next room, the dining hall, the smoothly carved chairs and table reflected the moonlight, casting a gray shadow all around the hall, even into the next room, presumably the study.

But after the incident at the other magician's house, Alex knew not to go into the study, as most magical things would be there. And Angelina seemed to have veered to the left and out of sight.

Alex, with the desired silence, made it to the dining hall and peeked into the study. Nobody there. Then the left hall it was…

Also rather empty. But Alex still blindly walked to the end of the hall, where he heard an argument going on. Not that it was the nicest thing to hear, as Crispain's and Lore's quarrels saw to that.

"…I told you what happened. Leave him alone,"

That was Angelina's voice. It was very defensive, and "him" seemed to be Alex. This said person smiled at this thought.

"But it wasn't satisfying, your information. So, one, you cannot go home yet, two, you still have to spy on him. I'll inform your parents you and I am doing business and have nothing to worry about. And they don't."

There was a rude sound and a gasp. "As if,"

"It's not like I'm going to hurt you…"

Alex was suddenly conscious of his vulnerable position. A demon could be around any corner…

Alex burst out the front door and didn't stop running until he reached his house, where he somewhat managed to get in without anyone noticing. He had enough of what he had heard.

Alex pieced what he could together. His parents had indeed got someone to tail Alex and see where he went. Well someone was going to. Already Angelina had checked up on him. Who else would come? And the someone was the boy magician.

Stupid idiot kept messing in my business. He'd be the death of me, thought Alex.

Alex finally decided to retire for the night.

Dawn came in due time, and Alex prepared himself for the day. He washed up with what scarce water, and waited for the onslaught of customers, trying to get their bread before the festival.

Alex sighed, walked up to the door, unlocked it, walked back to the counter, and flexed his fingers. The day would be like when he, Lore and Crispain sold their bread.

And with that, slaves of all nations representing their masters came rushing, coins and goods jingling and bouncing at their sides. Alex smiled. He liked doing business.

The demon was unnoticed when first arrived, looking like a regular Egypt captive war slave. How convincing the demon was.

Alex had not looked onto the planes for over a day. So he could not know that a djinni was here. Nor did he think would there be danger. And he did not pay to much attention other then to his business; he did not sense a suddenly larger aura compared to the other customers.

The djinni patiently waited in line for his turn, preparing his speech over and over again. It would have loved to just blow the kid up with a simple Detonation, but of course, charges were charges. And so, the djinni had to somehow lure then boy out of view, and then do that simple Detonation.

Finally, after five gut-wrenching minutes of waiting, the djinni came to Alex.

Alex did not care to look through the planes. The threat of some one wanting to kill him was lost from his mind, for the moment.

The demon fumbled with his coins, and they spilled out of its hand. The other customers, scrambled for the flipping loose bronze coins. The demon was furious at this wild behavior, and then calmed himself. The boy was all that mattered.

This boy in question was trying to put off the others, but the djinni held out a hand, stopping Alex.

"Come with me boy. I'll pay you while these animals fight over mere coins like dogs over meat rinds."

Alex was a bit surprised especially at an educated slave, but he complied. The slave man hopped over the counter with startling speed and agility. Alex dismissed this, as the slave was in fit shape.

Which really, should have put him off; no slave to a high-class family would be in such good shape. In fact, most were either in a malnutrition state, or completely overweight. Only the army men were in good shape. They had the right amount of food in their diet, and were constantly marching.

The two walked into the presently vacant kitchen, and the unknown demon closed the door. By now, Alex's suspicion had kicked in and at last had checked the planes. It was like the government responding to a complaint: slow, cautious and very neglecting.

With that, Alex listened to the newly discovered demon. After it gave its money, Alex nodded, and walked off.

The demon frowned. It could not kill Alex now with magic; it would blow the house down, something its master did not want. Furious, it walked out the shop exit.

Now that Alex was certain the boy wanted, or bribed, to kill him, he kept a cautious eye for any unusual activity and other abnormities. But no imps, djinni or shady people could possibly be assassins. So Alex was relieved for a bit of time.

Now that his counter job was over, as the shop was being locked down and closed for the festival by his father, Alex would then help the rest of his family get their bread stall ready. (The same one that Alex, Crispain and Lore had used) They would travel via the family cart to the grounds outside the heart of Rome and in a park outside the walls. Then Alex would stay with Crispain and Lore after the stall was up, and hopefully miss the entrance speech by the boy. They would then of course be having fun, eating as much as provided, then going to the entertainment "sources" with Alex stopping by his family portable stall to occasionally help out with the selling.

It was surprising that Crispain could come, for his family was high class and should have not been allowed in. However, his proud father helped with the festival, and so his family could easily come without being stopped by the guards. And the Roman aristocrats could do anything, especially with a large sack of fat gold coins; there were really no stopping high-class people from coming; they basically organized the event.

Alex looked out the window; people were already beginning to leave their homes and to the fair. Carts bumped along with goods by the ton, bound to be sold; animals whined and shouted as they were whipped along. Scents of spices and fresh foods were very noticeable to Alex and seemed a lot more attractive then his family's special honey bread and other treats.

Alex was drawn from this view to his own little pile. He threw the last of the baskets into the cart and hopped on, waiting for his family. The day was still bright, and was one of those rare days where it wasn't too cold. Yes, quite hot, but it would cool down as the sun went down.

Alex had his pouch full of useful items. One of which was a special knife given by Jorge.

It had a three and a half inch bronze hilt that fitted Alex ominously well; comfortable, but itchy at times. The blade was 5 inches, strangely with silver doctored in. And there was Latin etched on both sides of the blade, "peace" (pacis) the other saying "beware" (caveo). Jorge had said with the proper training, with a flick to the earth, or anything flat and hard, the knife would face you with either pacis or caveo, and refer to the danger level, the hostility of someone unknown, or a decision. Or a greeting: a flash of the pacis side could mean "hello" or the opposite could mean, "stay away" or a challenge.

Another confusing thing about the knife is that it could take on two sheaths; one at the hip seemed to be the main place to put the blade, and yet it could be drawn from the other sheath at the ankle, to help one out of a sticky situation. And if the blade was to be taken from the owner, he/she could retrieve it from one of the sheaths. It was confusing, and seemed like a trick, but still nonetheless useful.

In the pouch was another magical object. A vial of some liquid could make you see a desired person or place. All it needed was a place for it to stand still and stay attracted. Then a simple, polite command in Latin was needed to use the imp inside to go find the certain thing. It was like a scrying glass, only more convenient and disguised.

And then there was your glass of Greek fire, the book of spells, and a lot of coins. Mostly silver currency, thin, but large.

Alex knew that he and Crispain had to share money with Lore. She was very poor, as their family had been disgraced a long time ago. And plus, she would have to sneak out of her abode. Not that it would be hard though. Just she couldn't stay out for long.

Then every member of the family came out. They were a happy bunch, as if completely oblivious to the world to come; the Dark Ages, Jorge had predicted. His family looked radiant in the sun, all smiles and laughs. Alex could be there, in the full show of the sun's rays, looking like the most perfect thing. If only there was such a thing.

With the stall set up, Alex went hunting for his friends. A couple of familiar families were in the market area, but he cared not to greet them. In all sense, he should have, as he wanted to wait out the speech, but something in his instinct told him to rush.

As he entered the center of the huge mess of stalls and entertainment outside of Rome, he stopped in his tracks. The boy was still giving his speech. And Lore appeared to be with him, on stage.

This was a surprise.

Lore was sitting on an elegant stool, looking a bit embarrassed. In her eyes, she was very desperate, but didn't seem to look for an escape. Either she didn't want to slip away with all eyes on her, or she just seemed a bit soiled by the massive attention.

With that, Crispain came flying into him, knocking them both beyond the mini walls of stalls, and separating the main speech from the rest of the festival. The boy's voice echoed across the grounds.

"Where the hell were you? Lore and I were waiting for you at the speech ceremony, when that magician came, and basically abducted her."

Indeed, both Lore and Crispain were in what appeared their best tunics. Nicely washed and of the nicest material, Crispain's was. It had to be extremely expensive and rare; only the best agents could possibly get it. His hair was washed carefully and deliberately, and his sandals were of the best leather. Lore's wasn't quite as valuable, but it was obviously the best in her wardrobe.

"What?"

"Yes. He pushed me aside as if I was air, and dragged her to the center."

"And you didn't stop him?"

"How could I?"

By now, the speech was wrapping up, and Lore was beginning to be extremely grateful that she hadn't fully been shown to the crowd. The crowd had started to part, and as the boy finished his speech with a dramatic touch, the crowd loudly clapped for him, for they didn't seem too disgusted with him, nor did they feel any gratefulness for him, unless it was to finally get on with the feast.

Both Alex and Crispain emerged from the wall of stalls and waited impatiently with an air of fear for Lore to stagger down. The boy said some words to her, and then she was "dismissed". But she seemed honored by the few words, as she was flushed once she arrived to them.

"What the heck were you doing, cooperating with the enemy?"

She glanced at Alex, and then walked off to where the place of introductions would be.

Her two friends scurried off to catch up with her, Crispain the most annoyed.

"Well?" demanded Crispain.

"What is there to say?" replied Lore.

"You can start by saying why you were up there so patiently."

"What's there to explain? I had to stay with good will otherwise who knows what would have happened to us. To the commoners."

Crispain seemed a bit taken in by this, but was otherwise, very unconvinced. "I believe that you seemed proud of your chosen position. Even when this guy could have a demon kill any of these merchants with a clap of his hands."

"Now, he doesn't seem like the person to do that."

Now Alex and Crispain stopped following her and halted in their tracks. It was a huge shock, a corrupt magician, to be nice and all that other attributes that Lore hinted he had.

Five minutes later, Lore, Alex, and Crispain were in a large crowd of greeting men and women, wearing the best they could have, and flaunting it evidently. Men were making bets on the races later that evening, women were gossiping about rumors and whispers, as if they had nothing to do but talk rumors. Children ran around, ramming into people without pity. Crispain nearly tripped on a running child, shouting in despair once another two stumbled into him.

Alex left the greeting part so to avoid his old friends and especially the boy, but Crispain and Lore stayed to talk to people they knew. Alex would have loved to indulge in talking with all the people he knew. However, they all thought he was insane.

On his way to the family stall, Alex saw how terrible Rome's situation was; djinn were walking everywhere. And because of the lack of great magicians, several of the djinn looked rather pitiful and weak, something Alex could take down. By the time Alex reached his stall, he had seen over 2-dozen djinn, more than half as strong as a foliot.

Eloy saw Alex, asked no questions, and left for the greeting ceremony. Alex took his seat, and waited for the feast.

Usually, there were no visitors during this interval, everyone too busy with setting up their stall, or meeting old friends. But this time, several demons came up and ordered a piece of bread, or visited his stall and then went onto other stalls. Either demons needed to eat (Alex had not studied about djinn fully) or was fetching for their master. After the earlier event with the demon at his home, Alex got a huge fright. But he managed to give the change back without signs of fear.

Following several djinn customers came Angelina. Unlike her other appearance, Alex was not surprised. The boy would try to get Alex's position well known.

She ordered a slice of bread with honey slathered over it. As Alex followed her order, she didn't seem at all nervous like at the shop. She was calm, and collected, and even seemed a bit impatient with Alex's slow process with the bread order.

As she ordinarily paid for her buy, she whispered to him fearfully, "His demons are coming."

Angelina walked off in her own direction, leisurely chewing on the white bread, and suddenly turned to the left, and went her way. Alex stared after her tracks for a while, and then swept his head around in search of said assailants. Seeing not a thing out of place, Alex carefully drew out his silver knife, and placed it inconspicuously on the counter, and waited for one of his family members to come.

Subsequent to almost an hour of unbearable stillness and tiring alert anxiety, Eloy came back, saying farewell to a couple of people before arriving at the ever so frightened Alex. He hadn't really met a demon without help.

"You okay Alex?"

Alex quickly glanced up as if he was shivering in dead winter with nothing on.

"Yes. Yes, I'm good. Thank you for coming. Thought you left me,"

Eloy smiled, and took over, and Alex swiftly covered his large knife in his sheath and under his tunic belt. Shaking his head at his fears in such a beautiful place, Alex walked into the sunset, and to the feast awaiting him.

Crispain and Lore had saved a spot for him at the massive table out in the forest clearing. The feasting was sited at a long chain of forest clearings; large enough to accompany two massive tables and have cooks bring over foods of delight, and drinks of pleasure. Laughter could be heard all over the eating grounds, and shouts were loud and hearty, and forest animals fled in fear of the loud noises.

Crispain and Lore were finally getting along, laughing and collapsing before Alex could reach to them. Both were quite red in the face, and were talking gibberish.

Alex had taken a few bites already at his seat beside Crispain and neither had even indicated that they had seen him. Not very polite this was. He was technically the leader; yet still choose to all ignore Alex and suddenly be very friendly and chummy to each other.

Alex had finished a pig's leg, and was starting the leafy salad. But Crispain was leaned toward Lore in a way to avoid Alex. Lore was also annoying her neighbor, a thin man who was clearly low class. He had to edge away every few minutes.

Finally, Alex had enough. He carefully examined his spoon, and then lightly tapped it on the table. No reply. Then Alex kicked Crispain carefully as so to create a chain reaction. It was a massive one; Lore had knocked people all the way from there to the end of the table, comically tripping one of the cooks, who gave a roar as he came down.

After everyone had recovered awkwardly from the sudden force, finally Crispain looked to his right, to obviously see Alex, eating a slice of pie as if that whole incident had never occurred.

Alex waited for both of their attention, and then looked up.

"Oh hello. Having a grand time?"

Lore looked strangely at him, and slowed sat back into her seat, with a face of burned shame. Crispain didn't seem to realize what had happened. Furious, Alex burned inside and wasn't in the mood as he was last night.

Oblivious to the rotten moods, Crispain ate into his cold meal. Lore pushed it away in disgust. Alex had finished already and was planning to eat the newly set final course food. But Alex didn't feel like eating it yet; not while his other two friends were still eating. Despite Crispain's ravenous hunger, and Lore's sour appetite, they had seen what many hadn't the opportunity to. So it was like a bond unmatched, by anything existing. Silly as it may be to hold back dessert, it was still quite something, like the many cultures of the world.

Alex and Crispain soon finished up, silently worked things out, and left for the festival. Lore quickly followed up, squeezed between them, and they all began at the fortune stall…

An imp signaled to three high level djinn to come. They did so without haste. The boy in mind was at the gypsy stall, having first his hand read, then using the crystal ball to see into his future. The boy didn't seem impressed, and neither did his friends.

The imp, done its job, went back to report to its master while the djinn took out the boy.

The djinni in the center slipped into the shadows, and quietly became a poor, stubby Roman man, while his companions became little insects.

Alex finally managed to leave the stall of which he thought would be of some interest, only to have an old lady with a screechy voice, and rough hands, tell him nonsense. He visited a few stalls, and finally haggled over a crude mirror for a reasonable price. They were rare, and those that did exist were only blown glass with molten lead. Lore easily cheated off another merchant by getting a beautiful bracelet for a low price. Crispain was not so good at trading and was in turn ripped off when he bought a lean archery bow for almost the entire amount Lore had. But Crispain shrugged off Alex's protests and walked off to the exotic drinks.

Another few hours passed. The djinn kept their patience and still with caution trailed Alex; though the man djinni had to change a few features to make sure that Alex had not noticed it.

Then, Alex and his companions were hit with a massive crowd of people, shouting, bargaining and laughing. He was separated by his friends and was alone as he pushed through the crowd. The djinn looked at each other, and then they decided to strike.

Alex busily was pushing people out of his way, as they were being rather blind and shoving him to one side like a beggar. Then he realized how vulnerable his position was. Alex stepped to one side, much further away from Crispain, who was trying to reach Lore. Alex reached into his bag, and slowly pulled out his silver weapon…

BOOM! Suddenly, Alex was blown to one side as something green landed near his feet and blasted him into a tent. Only his resilience saved him. Everyone stopped for a moment, wondering what had happened, and then they fell into chaos. Stalls became messes when people ran over them to get away from the danger. Human soldiers, who were trying to halt the commoners and put them at rest, were trampled as the frightened commoners fled like wolves upon sheep. Lore and Crispain were just about to be united, only to be roughened away to opposite sides of the pathway. Alex was just getting up with his knife at the ready. In just a matter of minutes, all the commoners were gone, as were the djinn guards, and Alex was alone.

Alex flexed his hand and held the dagger in front of him. He had never practiced using it, or sparring, so Alex knew that he needed something else. He was thinking of using a spell, but against a djinni, that would work too long. Would using one of the vials work?

Then the sound of large wings beating sounded through the air. A peculiar scent was suddenly noticeable. Screeches pained Alex's ears, and made him sweat uncontrollably. Smoke rose in the air, forcing Alex to cough it out. Then, the djinni came.

It did another Detonation, and hit Alex's knife. The Detonation reflected into a ruined tent. Alex stared at the dagger, amazed. Then, Alex smugly smiled.

A Spasm here, an Inferno there, two Convulsions turned aside. Finally, three rapid Detonation fired in succession were turned away by a simple twirl of the knife, and hit the djinni squarely on the chest. It fell out of the sky, chest on fire. It did not get up.

Alex backed away, so slowly he did not feel any progress. Then he ran away.

Alex stumbled out of the smoke to see utter panic. Commoners and merchants alike fled the scene and were uncontrolled. Soldiers attempted to stop them, only to fail miserably. The commoners ran toward the city gates, where they were finally halted and calmed. Djinn flew into the same abbess that Alex had tried to escape.

Alex looked wildly for his family, instead, spotted Crispain and Lore huddled around a fire. Night had long fallen, and Alex had traveled for at least an hour, and so did the other djinn that were accompanying the djinni, which Alex had miraculously killed. They had spread to the other shows and other stalls and either destroyed them, damaged some part, or threw the stalls to some place a longs way from where they originally were, and also ate some of the animals, humans etc. With this attack and its effect, many families were packing up what they had left and were returning home with a furious look on their faces.

Crispain and Lore walked over to Alex, they eyes full of questions. Alex answered them all.

"So…" Crispain took out his own silver dagger, pulled it out of the sheath, and stared at it in wonder.

"Or does it have to do with silver?"

All three looked at each other.

"Alex!"

Alex turned to find the source of his searcher, and got his entire family. His twin brothers, his mother and his father, were looking ash fallen but safe. But…

"Alex!"

His twin brothers ran to his side and cried tears into his dusty robe.

"What…"

"Alex."

Alex turned to his third call and looked at his father. His usual jolly eyes were full of melancholy and asceticism. Then, the news came out.

"Eloy's dead."

This made the twin boys shout even louder. Alex looked at his brothers, and then back at his father, this time his eyes wide and full of rejection. Alex could not say anything, yet opened his mouth. Eloy, just a young man, with a future ahead of him, was dead, from the djinn that had ruined his day. Now Alex felt the night close in on him, choking and collapsing everywhere, the ghosts, the sins, the demons all came crashing down, faster, faster, faster—

"Alex."

This time, it was his mother. Alex turned with awkward grace.

"We lost everything. Our cart. The stall. Our bread. The horses. Everything."

Everything. Everything. Everything. Everything.

It echoed in Alex's mind as if nothing in the world existed, or more correctly, nothing in the world mattered. Everything precious, that mattered, that was—

Then Alex pushed his brothers off, and ran off into the forests. He did manage to get into the bushes, only to trip on a root. Alex would have laughed at himself for that, in better times. When Eloy was around.

Alex couldn't release those tears, and he for once, wanted them out. It was being contained too long, too much, too little time to break them out. Alex sat leaning on an oak tree, the world blackening.

Crispain and Lore were soon by his side, helping him sit up straighter. Alex felt bile rise in his throat, only to go back down with a disgusting fragrance.

"I told you Alex, I'm sorry, but I told you…"

And Alex stared at Lore despairingly.

**Leo**

**Two Days Later**

Meanwhile, far beyond Rome's steadily weakening iron fist, armies of battle hardened men and horrid djinn marched in the dark, without a single rest of sleep or a single meal. Neither men nor djinn felt the pain of hunger or the lull of sleep; their leader kept harassing them on. They knew that their pain would be rewarded with the burning and looting of Rome.

Leonard had his comrades wait ahead while he reported back to Odoacer, their master. Leo was just flying up above the columns of djinn when he heard the horse but load cry of his master. Odoacer couldn't possibly perform a summon during march, so he settled for screaming through an imp horn.

The sky was dark, cloudy, and it began to rain. The weather from Rome had come to here. It was the morning, a few hours after last night's occurrence with Nero and Bartimaeus.

Leo and his companions knew what was ahead: more punishments by Odoacer. Already they had failed to get the cube from Nero before, and now they couldn't get the cube again nor the chance to assassin the babe emperor. It was a huge surprise that Odoacer had not punished them to his full extent before. He was too busy with some other affairs.

All of a sudden, the large column had stopped, presumably to wait for the vanguard's report. People began to light fires, set up tents, and beginning to eat and relaxing for the next march. And it was their first stop in over a few days. Leo dropped to an area where a few djinn stayed motionless. Once Leo landed, they scattered, awed and fearful of his great power. Leonard walked to the biggest tent, in the center of the column. It wasn't lavished with great goods and rares, merely rather large and cozy. Leo entered the tent with a feeling of uncertainty. Perhaps Odoacer wanted him to continue looking for the cube.

Odoacer was instead, waiting for Leo.

"Sit Leonardo."

This was odd for Leo, but he complied.

"You have been wondering why I have not punished you to your deserved degrees. I can understand. But it is easy. I am too busy researching the complete fall of Rome; because I know it cannot be done by power. Hannibal demonstrates that, as he was much clever and more powerful then the Romans. But in the end, the latter prevailed. So not power, not strategy. We cannot win by playing our strengths. Yes, we will get far, but not finish the job. We can only exploit their weaknesses, and blow them through those cracks.

"It's the perfect time. But there's no chance. No one knows Rome's weak point. They can be weak, but still stable. So, I went in search for that break point. I sent djinn to find as much as I can. I was not disappointed, like I was with you Leonard,"

Leo winced.

"As a bit off topic, how did you not even kill the two djinn? Do tell, as you had the perfect chance."

Leo didn't like what was about to come.

"Well, erm, the first time, it was too public to actually kill them. You do understand that master? Good. As for the second time…"

By the time the story came out, it was clear what was to come.

"You slacked off! How could you? You and your **afrit **brothers could destroy them with a flick of your power! One was inexperienced, the other, much weaker! How?"

"Yes, well one was around for at least three thousand years, and the other had a lot of power, so they covered each other's weaknesses!"

Odoacer looked about to punish his slave, then he faltered. It was clear how underestimated Nero and Bartimaeus were. And there was just that lecture by Odoacer on how you must exploit the weaknesses, and not on your strengths.

"Hmm…more work to get rid of two simple djinn! Now, back to Rome's weaknesses. It seems there are none, correct? I thought so too! But now with the information I have received…

"You have heard of Troy, yes? Good! Then I can get to the real point. The Aeneads, the survivors of Troy, was said to have fled to Mount Ida. But no surviving scripts that have been found say where they settled. I thought they died out. But when I sent out my djinn, one of them brought back a hidden, lost artifact, a lost tale of Homer's."

Leo could not see where this was going.

"You know of how the war had gone on for ten years. Only in the last year did some signs of change show, only because Achilles intervened. The army of Troy was well trained and equipped to hold off the massive Greek army. And Rome's army, on a side note, is of the best in the known world."

Then Leonard saw the inference.

"You are saying that Rome descends from Troy?"

He wasn't able to accept that fact, but something about that piece seemed to complete the puzzle.

"Very hard to see, aye. But if you were to look closely through all the info my djinn found, it would seem to work out easily."

"Let's say Troy's son's are Rome's fathers. Why would that help?"

"How did Troy fall?"

"They were too obsessed with their god concepts and were too blind to reject the Trojan horse. And then the Greeks came back while the Trojans celebrated, the Greeks hidden in the horse burst out and opened the gates and the Greeks flooded in. But the Romans aren't that blinded with the gods anymore."

"But the Trojans were tricked. We can do that with Rome."

"How? No way to trick them, yes?"

A man stepped into the large tent. He was armed to the teeth, and had many furs lavished over his armor.

"When do we start to leave sir?"

The man was very impatient and restless to get on moving. All the men were, despite their tired limbs tugging on their souls.

"Eager are we? Good. We depart in an hour,"

The man looked satisfied, and bowed, then left.

"Now, Leonard, as I was saying, there is a way to trick them. Troy was indeed too awed by the gods, but their got moral from their beliefs of Apollo being on their side. With that moral, they prospered. The Romans are advanced in terms of technology. One way they have done this is by creating a place to create a type of cleanness: a sewage system. It is connected from several homes which have that accessibility, which all drain out to one source way out from the pipelines. And from what I understand it seems that they are rather sizable. And my djinn also tell me that there are several points from the forums that are used for divesting waste. With this, we can penetrate any point in Rome."

Leonard froze with this information. At last! A way to end his charge! And it was a way to destroy those magicians.

"So, I need to you go the main palace via sewage. You can cause as much damage, only after you get the cube. With the cube, the Romans can still retort our attack with that great spirit."

Leo was about to stand up and leave, but as he turned to the exit, Odoacer said one more thing.

"A couple more things Leonard. One, leave the infant emperor alone, I want to deal with it. Two, kill those djinn for good."

Leo smiled at the prospect of destroying those pests. And one of his uttuku friends had mentioned how that Bartimaeus had almost single-handedly destroyed the uttuku force attacking Egypt. An enemy of a friend killed.

Just as Leo flew away from the large column, it started moving loudly again. Time was short. It had to be today.

Leo arrived at where his brothers sat patiently. They were well protected by the heavy rain. They heard Leonard's footfalls. The Brothers stood up, waiting for the order.

"We go today."

Bartimaeus 

I highly doubted that we could have gone any slower to going to Rome's center. Constaine also couldn't have been more of a burden then an afrit can be. And Nero couldn't have been more awkward then he usually is. I would hate to see his writing; it would be rather bumpy and amateurish.

Trudging through the rain for hours, we reached the palace in a rather sorry condition. I would think not to explain how the great Bartimaeus was a wet dog. But I turned into the bright and merry Ptolemy and almost pushed past the guards with something that looked like eagerness, only to actually be impatience. Constaine scolded at this, but did a similar move when the guards did not have him go through. The frog, which was now a counselor, slipped in, while Nero knocked over the one on the right rudely, so it was a close affair.

But Constaine was somehow very well known, so we were admitted, even though Nero and I couldn't go to our master. But there were still skeptical eyes, very, now that the Brothers had managed to get so far into the city as pitiful Roman soldiers. We were in just as suspicious forms. But our master came down the hall with two other djinn by his side, and he called Nero and I over. We did so with a little bit of hesitance. The master did not seem to mind this, but instead walked fast to a large set of majestic doors 1.

They opened with a smooth swing and to a grand room. I can't even start to say how pitiful it was to when the pyramids were built 2, or the Parthenon 3, or even when this room was more professionally built decades ago. Now it had been sort of redesigned to something a lot cheaper and less first class. But that wasn't the point to me; they completely ruined the architect foundations. Just shows you how simple-minded humans are. Yes, arcs here, gold there, gems glued into just about everything, but the room clearly was unstable. Things looked tilted, random small bumps occurred in the floor, and the wall's paint had thickened in one unsystematic place, and thinned in another. Anyone blind to riches or never seen riches would be impervious to these small mistakes.

My master was seated at a table near the head quickly, and other high men. Afrits walked with an air of provocation, as the recent attacks on Rome were most disturbing, even for us spirits. After we entered, the door slammed shut ominously loud, preventing anyone from coming in, or going out. Soldiers of djinn and huge humans surrounded the door, from both sides. It was clear that paranoia had settled in Rome.

Now that everyone was here, it was no use standing around pointlessly; the acting emperor for the youth, Romulus Augustus, was here, and at the head of the massive fifteen-foot table. The real emperor, Romulus himself, sat looking small beside his advisors.

Actually, he wasn't truly emperor. His father, Orestes, used to be master of soldiers, or Magister militum, for the emperor, Julius Nepos, only to later cause a coup d'état and force him out of Rome. Then he did the odd and stupid motive of putting his son on the throne when he was only about ten. And ironically, Orestes used to be a secretary for Attila, Nero's old master.

Of course, the Western Empire had become a shadow of its once great self, due to heavy invaders and internal uprisings that imperial authority could only be centered by Ravenna and Rome. The hegemony that Rome once had over its Germanic States was long gone, the real power behind the throne lately was from foreign allies. And with a ten year old on the throne, it was only bound to get worse. The Eastern part of the split Roman Empire had now dismissed its counterpart as a client state, or, inferior. The two generals fighting for the Eastern throne, Zeno and Basiliscus, hadn't view Orestes as ruler.

And Orestes had more troubles. Heruli, Scirian and Turcilingi mercenaries had demanded for a third of Italy. Orestes, being predictably greedy, downright refused. So, they rebelled under Odoacer and created a massive force, as faced when I rumbled with the vanguard force attacking the outpost days ago. Now, recently, on August 28th 476, a day after the Jail Incident, it was received that Orestes was captured when he went on a fool-hearted journey to defeat the forces of Odoacer near Piacenza and executed. Hence the reason Constaine went through the pouring rain to see us, as our master was too lazy to bother to summon us by pentacle.

"You all know why we have come here on such short notice. Our leader," said the acting emperor with a taste of disgust. "Our leader had been taken out, as has most of Rome's forces. The situation is simple. We need more soldiers."

Though the men were very good at hiding the fear from their faces, the air tenser then stone. You could have almost sliced the air with a knife. Not that I would do such a fool-heated thing. It was simply a figure of speech.

"Because of our defeat, the majority of Rome's army is gone. The barracks are empty. Many books with djinn names will have to be reedited. So, two things: One: within an estimate of a week, we need to have magicians summon an average of a dozen djinn per man."

Usually, the lazy magicians would groan at this. But their existence was dependent on them staying up summoning and summoning. At least this got them alert.

"Two, we need the residents to be recruited and trained. This will be the job of who that remains from the army. Ravenna cannot support us, nor can the Eastern Roman Empire,"

We all knew why.

"This needs to be completed efficiently with satisfying results. When they attack, the walls will be fully protected with djinn, spells, archers and other powerful weapons to hold off the invaders and force them into a siege, something we can afford. The Eastern Empire will not support us now, but will once they hear their great city is now under siege. All residents, once the city is attacked, are to take refuge in a safe place while their houses are unfortunately used for battle stations, and to make sure no women and children and the elderly are hurt by there barbarians,"

Actually, I doubted this acting emperor would truly care for his commoners, as all magicians are.

"If we force them into a siege, the estimated time that we can stand is about six months. We have huge cellars, and as long as our walls situate stably and our gates closed and rigid, we might even surpass that time if reinforcements come. Any questions?"

Why would there be? The magicians were too afraid to rack their brains for loose ends, and needed any comfort. And we spirits saw no way it could harm us that we could lose our lives them the possibilities are now.

"Good! Now lets move out! Start recruiting and summoning! Stock as much harvest into the cellars, and begin to evacuate the population tomorrow! Remember, we can only fight back if we are in a siege, not face to face!"

1. Majestic as in gold trims, a polished brass handle and made of the finest wood, with decorations of rare minerals and other precious metals. Didn't impress me, despite it being one of the most expensive sets of doors in the most powerful city in the world. **Leo**

Meanwhile, down below the magician's feet, four dark figures hopped into a sizeable hole, which led into sewers of Rome, about a meter in diameter. The last one, clearly shadowed by his companions' higher power, looked over his shoulder with sharp eyes, then dived in after a couple minutes after his brothers.

They were in waist deep water, waist as in about half a meter, as they were of different shapes and sizes. But it sure was filthy. And the current was going against them, as the water was flowing out of the pipes, so that considerably slowed their mobility, and it was too low to fly. But them easily managed.

Odoacer had given them a rough set of directions that led to the palace. The four followed it and came indeed to a pipe overhead that led to bright lights and a majestic ceiling. Leo hopped up high, and grabbed a low bar and pulled himself up. Them a maid dumped a whole bucket of water down the pipe, to hit Leo square in the face. He didn't back down, though sputtering, jumped from that slim bar and into the room.

It was well decorated, with many luxuries that were displayed in the conference room. Bright colours and bright imp lights blinded Leo, as he had just come from the darkness of the sewer. But as a spirit, he easily adjusted and saw the better details of the room. One thing that was most interesting—

Then Michelangelo smashed into Leo, knocking him to the ground. Leo jumped back onto his feet, and snarled at his brother, and then got his other brothers hastily up from the sewers into the bathroom. They looked at each other, and then walked out in a single file.

No one was in the corridor, so they quickly ran out into another one. In that one, there was an afrit, but its back was turned, so the four slipped into another hall. But in all their haste to escape the afrit, they didn't see what they were going into: the main hall. Humans walked to and fro in haste to complete their duty. Djinn walked slowly with piercing eyes. A pair of these piercing eyes saw the four conspicuous spirits. It widened its eyes, and the whole hall seemed to pause.

Then Leo knew what he was stuck in. He lifted his hands, shifted into a fighting stance, and began.

Bartimaeus 

People were getting up, their fingers fidgeting, their minds clearly befuddled. But they knew their goal. At least magicians could put their lazy behinds to achieve that.

Outside however, loud bangs, and crashes and shouts were heard, instantly freezing the magicians. The guards, both djinni and man, ran to the door. Nero and I had to follow suit. One curious guard peered outside, and gave a massive yelp. He whipped the door open. With so many crowded around the door to protect the magicians, some never saw the commotion. Good thing too.

Smoke flew everywhere, sparks flying, bright lights in the fray of the panic: the center of the hall. The hall was incredibly big, possibly half a kilometer long. Bodies were along the sides of the room, clearly hit with magic. In the center, a huge smoke column had formed; some floating over to us and making the humans cough hoarsely. But their instincts didn't faulted. They flooded what portion of the hall they could, meeting some of the guards that had now arrived from the other side of the hall. Djinni, afrits and humans surrounded the column of smoke, bright lights, and explosions. Within a couple of minutes, the noises and illuminations ceased, and soon the smoke flew away.

In the center, some spirits stood when I thought they had decided to pack up and leave: the Brothers. Around them, bodies of djinn and afrits lay dead, clearly taken out without much effort. The Brothers seemed very ready for a good fight.

The humans formed a phalanx of silver spears and heavy shields. It seemed formidable and impenetrable; that is, to a human. To a djinni, it was nothing, even with the silver spears. And so to demonstrate, All four shot Detonations at the men, throwing them in what space wasn't already filled with bodies, even stacking to make a few small piles. Many were dead, but some had mere bruises, others with massive wounds that revealed flesh. Those with less horrible injuries had their spears deflect one of the four Detonations.

Then afrits and djinn alike ran at them, in the air or by foot, they had the Brothers disappear entirely from my view, clearly the Brothers seemed deader than that pig I had to slaughter for my master.

Smoke and debris flew once again all over the hall, making the magicians curious at the doors retreat back in a fit of coughing. Screams soon emitted from the fray, hopefully of the Brothers'. Before long, the commotion ceased, and all spirits involved in the latest braw were either dead or knocked out. Only a few afrits and a dozen djinn were standing, a pitiful amount compared to what the total was minutes ago. But the Brothers once again had disappeared.

We ran out throughout the palace as a response to our masters' commands and shouts, barely leaving a space unobserved, and moving fast and with mobility, covering dozens of square meters in a few minutes and desperate to prevent the Brothers from killing or damaging anymore. Most of us just wanted to survive our charges.

Nero and I flew through rooms, leaving screaming servants and aristocrats in shock, our eyes peering at any possible hiding spots. We landed by a stair railing, turned our form to quick runners, and smashed into the nearest room on the third floor.

By chance, it was already unlocked and the room was the safe room, with Rome's most precious weapons and jewelry. The Brothers were looting of course. But when Nero and I observed the treasures, in fight stance, not many were disturbed; just a few gold coins were on the ground, as if someone had stumbled into a pile of carefully stacked coins. The marid, Leo's aura of his power, was very clear on the planes. We followed it past a many powerful weapons, many rares, and countless other objects that would have helped the barbarians. But no, none of that was touched. But at the far end of the room, there was a marble plinth, and it was empty. And Nero and I both knew what it was supposed hold: the black cube. But its mysterious storms behind the glass were nowhere to be seen. It was clear where it had gone; the secure window behind the plinth was open to the night sky, and four figures were flying off to the distance.

_Apologies for the last part being delayed, but it was too long to put it all together, so the last part will be posted in about a couple of months. Sorry, but _

_One: yes I do have a life_

_Two: School is unfortunately part of my life._

_I hope my Latin is correct…_


End file.
